


University's Mightiest Heroes

by ClarkeStetler, Goosenik



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Avengers Family, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Disabled Character, Defenders Family (Marvel), Falling In Love, First Love, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gay, Gay Male Character, M/M, Marvel Cameos, Mental Health Issues, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tattoos, Therapy, X-Men Cameos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29119710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClarkeStetler/pseuds/ClarkeStetler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goosenik/pseuds/Goosenik
Summary: Steve Rogers is starting his sophomore year of college with a healthy amount of trepidation. His roommate situation last year went terribly, and going 'random' with his roommate this year hardly bodes well. When he meets boxer-and-deaf ed major Bucky Barnes, however, he realizes that this year might have more potential than he thought. Add in Bucky's overly-energetic friends and the insane cross-campus game of tag they play every semester, and Steve is in for a really good semester.Also known as: the 'Avengers vs Zombies' Stucky college AU that no one asked for that we wrote anyway, as a love letter to the days when things were easier and we ran around shooting Nerf darts at people on our college campus.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 45





	1. Steve

**Author's Note:**

> All right, y'all. We deleted this fic and it is back up. This is Clarke's fault, first off. XD (Clarke: Yes, it is, and I am so sorry.)  
> This fic has mutated a lot. It kept trying to be something else and we put it on hiatus, and then we were going to completely redo it, and it just fought us endlessly. We decided to delete it so that eventually we could post the revamped version, but then there's been so much going on and the new version will be so completely different that we decided to just put this one back up as-was, imperfect and silly. We hope you enjoy it anyway. <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve moves in and meets his new roommate, and then later meets his roommate's friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, y'all. We deleted this fic and it is back up. This is Clarke's fault, first off. XD  
> This fic has mutated a lot. It kept trying to be something else and we put it on hiatus, and then we were going to completely redo it, and it just fought us endlessly. We decided to delete it so that eventually we could post the revamped version, but then there's been so much going on and the new version will be so completely different that we decided to just put this one back up as-was, imperfect and silly.

Steve leaned back against his bed, monitoring his breathing. That had been a lot of work, but everything was in place now. He looked around at his room proudly- granted, it wasn’t _all_ his, but half of it was, and he liked his half. And he’d moved in all on his own. It wasn’t his mom’s fault she couldn’t get the day off- he’d FaceTime her later and show her. The point was, he’d done it without needing people helping. He was completely capable on his own.

He examined the walls, pleased at his choices. The posters had been a precarious feat to get up there at the right height without a ladder, but he’d balanced on the chair and had gotten them up. Now, his side was covered in art technique posters, an old military poster from his dad’s regiment, a few movie banners, and diagrams of anatomy and things to help with sketching. It looked like he’d always wanted and imagined his dorm room to look.

He sat on the bed, looking at the empty side of the room. Last year, he’d lived in a dorm with another boy and it hadn’t gone well in the slightest. In fact, the constant noise had made it almost impossible for Steve to sleep and the vaping had set Steve’s asthma off, so he had had to spend most of his time away from the room, sleeping in lounges and wherever else he could, doing his homework in the library. He was praying he’d have someone better- the constant fighting and animosity with his roommate had worn on him and all he wanted was to go to school and sleep. Maybe make a few friends, but nothing extreme.

Hopefully the new guy wasn’t an asshole, he thought grimly. They were stuck together for ten months and there was _no_ privacy here. Hopefully he was at least tolerable. That’s all Steve needed. He could spend time in the library, or the art building, or one of the lounges. As long as his roommate stayed out of his stuff, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t pleasant.

He glanced at the door again, which he’d left propped open solely because nearly every door on the hall had been left propped open. Voices chattered back and forth in the hallway, shouting across the space. It was amazing how easily his peers made friends. Steve had never been able to do that so easily-- he was too skinny, too small, too awkward, too unable to participate in sports. He got too angry too quickly for a lot of the nerdier groups, and once he _had_ made friends in high school… he’d moved to college. He hadn’t had a strong friend group, more acquaintances than anything, and he was hoping this year would be different. He was going to try something different this year, maybe join a group or a club, something.

On the door were two ‘door decs.’ Both were designed like cassette tapes. One had _Steve_ across where the song title would be. The other had _James_ scrawled in the same space. Steve had gotten his roommate confirmation email about a month beforehand, but hadn’t been able to find a ‘James Barnes’ on social media, so he knew next to nothing about who he was rooming with. The confirmation had stated that he was a philosophy major, but that was the most information he’d gotten.

Steve took a deep breath and moved to sit at his desk, pulling out a sketchbook and starting to doodle. He wasn’t sure what all he was supposed to be doing, but he did want to be there when his roommate appeared, to say hello. He’d probably leave after that, so James’ parents or family or friends or whoever could help him move in, but it was important to say hello and get a good idea of who the other boy was.

He’d only started shading his sketch of an apple when there was a _scritch_ sound from the door. Steve turned just in time to see his roommate tear his own door decoration off the doorframe and stared. The boy was tall and muscular, the kind of muscles he definitely had to work out to get. The sides of his head were shaved, the rest of his hair long enough for him to tie back into a messy bun at the back of his head. He had a large duffel bag over his shoulder and two large boxes balanced in one arm. He turned his head to glance at Steve as he set the boxes down, and Steve caught a glimpse of earrings in his cartilage and an eyebrow piercing that glittered in the light from their open window.

Steve felt heat flow across his skin and cursed himself as he tried to think of something, anything to say that was somewhat coherent. He knew he was turning either red or pink, but both were embarrassing. He felt like he’d been hit over the head, like he was straining for breath even though his lungs were working fine.

This was probably the most attractive man he had ever seen, and Steve resigned himself to having their room filled with incredibly hot girls all the time and getting a lot of _hey maybe don’t come home rn_ texts at midnight.

People should be _warned_ when they were going to be confronted with someone who looked like James Barnes.

“Hey,” he said after probably too long. “I’m Steve. You’re James?”

“Bucky,” the boy disagreed, tossing his duffel onto his bed. He turned more fully, eyes flicking over Steve, taking him in, and then looked at the posters, studying them intently for a moment. A smile touched his lips and he held out a hand. “Bucky Barnes,” he said, but Steve’s attention had been heavily diverted by the tattoo sleeve across his roommate’s left arm. It was a massive, detailed, black-and-grey piece of art, a piece that transformed his skin into what looked like a metal prosthetic arm like something out of _Fullmetal Alchemist._

“Wow.” Steve stared at it, entranced. He had seen plenty of tattoos, had thought often about designing some himself, but he’d never seen anything like this. It was gorgeous and so well-done, rippling along the muscles and bones, every line and shading in place. It genuinely looked like Bucky had a metal arm. He shook himself after a moment and took Bucky’s hand, embarrassed again. “Sorry. I like tattoos. That’s great, I’ve not seen a sleeve like that before.” At least he knew enough to talk about it and use the right verbiage. “Okay, your name’s Bucky. Is that why you tore off the dec?” He bit back a smile. “Our over exuberant RA is going to be very upset when he finds out. He talked to me about them at length.”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky grinned at him. “I told him what my name was, it’s his own fault. I don’t want to be correcting people for the next ten months because they keep looking at the door.” He rifled around in the duffle bag and pulled out a sharpie, writing on something before slapping it onto the door. Steve leaned over slightly to find a _Hi my name is **Bucky**_ sticker now pressed onto the wood. Bucky waved a hand as Steve laughed. “They’ll take it off and give me a real one so that I stop ‘destroying’ property, I’ve been through it before.” He started rifling around his boxes, pulling out a pile of books and setting them on top of his desk. “You have any ink?”

“Yeah, I’ve got-” Steve reached for his ink pens before he realized that Bucky probably had no interest in his art supplies. Good god, if he didn’t learn how to think with the other boy in the room, this was going to be a difficult semester. He busied himself with organizing his desk drawers, trying not to let Bucky see how red he was now. “Sorry, my brain’s everywhere, it’s been a long day. No, I don’t. Not yet.” He had so many health issues, the extensive research he had done had advised against it. That didn’t mean he _wouldn’t--_ pretty much everything he did was ill-advised- it just meant he had to choose placement and size carefully, as well as monitoring when his health was stable.

“It’s all good.” Bucky glanced over at him with a bit of a grin, then pulled out clothes from the duffel and started to load them into his dresser. “You’re an art major, right? Education or just art?”

“Education.” He shook his head. “Art is something that you can’t do a lot with a major in, so I decided go for education so I can make money and do my own thing on the side. What about you?” He turned more fully in his seat, telling himself that he _wasn’t_ enjoying watching Bucky’s muscles flex as he moved stuff around. “What do you want to do?”

“Ostensibly, my major is philosophy, but that’s just to piss my old man off. I’m actually taking classes to swap my major over to deaf education.” He pulled out a shirt, frowning at it for a moment before tossing it into the drawer haphazardly.

“That’s going to wrinkle,” Steve said automatically, staring at him. Deaf-ed? “That’s really cool. What do you want to do? Teaching deaf kids would be an interesting challenge. I’ve worked with some blind students before with art- sculpture is a really helpful creative outlet for them.”

“Oh, god.” He grimaced, glancing at Steve. “I don’t know why blindness is so much harder for me to be casual about, but I always end up putting my foot in my mouth. I was talking to a blind German exchange student last year… and _I asked her if Germany was beautiful._ I about stepped in front of a car to just end it right then and there, I was so horrified.”

Steve laughed, grinning at him. “They’re just people who can’t do one thing. Just… you know, don’t ask if something is beautiful.” He laughed again, shaking his head and going back to the sketch of the apple. “That’s terrible, Bucky. It’s like asking a deaf person what their favorite song is. Though I guess if they’ve got hearing aids, that works.”

“I know.” He sighed heavily. “I never make that mistake normally, but something about it just throws me off. I even have a blind friend! Luckily, Matt takes it really well and plays off it. Anyways. I’m just planning to teach at a deaf school. I don’t know if it’s what I’m going to stay in. I thought about joining the force, and my pop wants me to enlist, so we’ll see where I end up.” He glanced at Steve as he set a picture frame on his desk. “Do you have a concentration? You art guys do, right? You focus on glass or sculpture or drawing or painting or something?”

Steve nodded. “I’m a drawing concentration. I like to sketch things. Sculpture is cool and I can do it, but I don’t really like it. It’s not the same. Painting is all right, but I never really got to work with it when I was younger, so I just like sketching better.” He shrugged, thinking. Bucky wanted to work with deaf children. That was… that was really cute. He forced his mind back to the conversation. “I’ve never worked with glass. I will this semester, though.” He was actually very excited about that.

“That’s cool.” Bucky considered this, abandoning his empty duffel on the floor and kicking it under his bed carelessly. He looked back at the two boxes and sighed heavily. “I pack less than anyone I know, and I still hate unpacking,” he muttered, then opened the nearest one again and dropped a handful of mechanical pencils onto the desk. “So what do I need to know about you, Steve?”

Steve blinked, glancing over at him. What did he need to know about him? He considered. “Well. I guess the main thing is I’ve got some stuff going on healthwise.” He hated this conversation. Hated how it made him look weak, seem weak. How people always treated him so differently afterward. But Bucky was living with him, and this conversation did actually have to be had. “I’m not like dying or anything, but smoke and particulates can set it off and I can’t breathe.” _I also can’t hardly run or climb stairs or almost anything else._ “So if you’re dusting or spraying stuff, let me know so I can go somewhere else for a while. If you smoke in here, I need to leave too.” He cleared his throat. “My art stuff is really expensive and hard to replace, so I’d rather you or your friends not mess with it. My last roommate broke some of it, and it was really difficult to get more. I don’t care if you look at stuff that’s around, but if you drop one of these pencils, the graphite shatters and then you can’t use it anymore. Same with my charcoal.” He shrugged a little. “If I think of something else I’ll let you know, but I guess that’s the main stuff. What do I need to know about you?”

There was a small frown on Bucky’s face, his eyes flickering to Steve’s desk, and then he seemed to shake it off. “Hm. Me?” He rubbed the back of his neck, bringing to attention a tattoo on the right side of his throat that looked like it might be in Russian. “I don’t like music or television on if I’m trying to sleep, so use earbuds. I box, so I might come home less than pristine sometimes. Ah… I think that’s about it. I’m pretty easygoing for the most part, despite the tattoos and piercings.” And he _winked._

Steve’s heart actually lurched and he closed his mouth when he realized it had fallen open slightly. “I don't watch a lot of TV,” he said after a moment, trying desperately to think of something to do or say other than just staring. “You box? That’s really cool. Is that for fun or as a competitive sport?”

“Both.” Bucky tossed one box to the ground, looking at it as if he had personally acquired victory over it, then started the second. “I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I used to hate it, but start something early enough and it gets in you deep, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that.” Steve smiled at him. He did understand- his mother and father had encouraged him to read and draw and create from a very young age, and it was a part of him now, as much as his eyes or heart or faulty lungs. “Well, that’s cool. It’s important to have outlets like that. What’s the tattoo on your neck?”

“Ah. Means _winter.”_ He gestured to it absently. “I forget it’s there sometimes. Are you allergic to anything?”

“Winter.” He thought about that for a moment or two. “Allergies?” He grinned. “Allergies are about the only thing I don’t have to deal with. I get sinus infections easy during spring and fall, but that’s seasonal stuff, it’s different than regular allergies.”

“There you go.” Bucky offered him a grin, one that made his brown-blue eyes crinkle up and sparkle somewhat. “Gotta count your blessings somewhere, right?”

Steve pointed at him with his pencil, feeling the weird little lurch in his stomach again. He was _definitely_ going to be getting a lot of _stay out of the room_ texts. There was no way that every single person on this campus didn’t know how attractive Bucky Barnes was. “I’m also not balding. So there’s that too.”

“And you said you had health problems,” Bucky scoffed. “You won the gene pool, punk.”

Punk. Steve grinned down at his sketchbook, noting with a certain level of resignation that now he just wanted to draw brown-blue eyes and the way they crinkled up. “Shut up, jerk. I could never pull off a man-bun or a full sleeve, so you still win.”

“Nah, you could rock some ink,” Bucky disagreed, flattening a single poster over his bare wall. “It would need to be in color, though.”

Steve turned around in the chair, surprised. No one had ever expressed an opinion that a tattoo made sense on Steve. Normally, they just laughed at the idea because Steve, in his button-ups and trousers and suspenders and sweaters, was the last person they’d think of to have a tattoo. “Why in color?” He examined the poster in interest. It was a mandala, hand-painted and beautifully vibrant. When Steve leaned forward slightly, he could see small words written atop each line, though he couldn’t make out what they were.

“You just seem… bright.” Bucky shrugged a little, leaving his poster to grab a water bottle from his box. “Too bright to be weighed down with black and grey and a lot of shading.”

Steve grinned at him, feeling his face heat a little. _You’re just bright._ “Unfortunately, you’d have to pick out the colors. I can’t actually see them all the time; there’s a reason I sketch in charcoal and graphite instead of paint.”

“You’re colorblind?” He blinked at him, turning. “Really? To what extent?”

“It’s called protan color blindness.” Steve rested his arms on the back of the chair. “I can see color, kind of. But greens, yellows, oranges, reds, certain shades of brown, they’re all sort of muddy. I can see blue, and I guess most shades of purple are blue to me. I can’t see pinks hardly at all, they’re just gray, unless they’re really light. If they’ve got reds in them it’s all gray.” He shrugged. “With reds, they usually look really dark. Almost black half the time.”

So, for example, he could see how gorgeous Bucky’s eyes were, because the brown was the right color, the blue the right color. He was very happy, now, that he’d been able to keep blue.

Bucky studied him in fascination, then, “That must be beautiful,” he marveled quietly.

Steve blinked. He’d never heard that before. Most people were apologetic. “Beautiful?” he echoed in surprise. “Why’s that?”

“Well, blue’s my favorite color,” he noted off-handedly. “But everyone else is stuck seeing the world in the same way, and you see something totally different. That’s just really cool to me.”

Steve felt a smile cross his face. “That’s true,” he agreed after a moment, trying to ignore the erratic way his heart beat when Bucky smiled like that. That _definitely_ wasn’t a good thing. He was far too attractive for Steve’s good. “Well, I’m glad. Some people get weird about it. Like it’s contagious or something.” He rolled his eyes. “People are weird.”

“People suck,” Bucky agreed mildly, factually. “It’s one of the few foundations of life. Are you hungry?”

“I am, actually.” He stood and stretched. “We can go down to the cafeteria, they’ve got some pretty good food, apparently.”

“Where were you last year?” He turned, grabbing a beaten and worn leather jacket from the last box and pulling it on smoothly before leading Steve out into the hallway. Steve stared for a moment, feeling his fingers itch at the sight, and shoved it down. Most men did not appreciate other men drawing them. It didn’t matter how gorgeous he was.

“I was across campus, in Deho.” He caught up with Bucky’s long legs with a little difficulty. “Where were you? Why’d you switch roommates?” Most people stayed with theirs, unless they had issues.

“Up in Johnson.” He pulled out his bun, ran his fingers through his hair, and Steve tried to disguise just how closely his eyes caught that action. “I would have killed Clint if we’d stayed together. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy, but my chaos and his chaos just… don’t mix well one-on-one long-term.”

“Hey,” a guy called as they passed him, voice in _that_ tone, and Steve felt his muscles already clenching up. “I didn’t know they let girls on our floor!”

He’d been called much worse, and he could take much worse. Getting into a fight day one was a terrible decision that he’d promised his mom wouldn’t happen, and also, Bucky wouldn’t appreciate finding out that his roommate was prone to flying off the handle. Unfortunately, none of this kept Steve from turning sharply, obeying the anger that pulsed through him, because no one was that comfortable insulting a stranger unless it was a frequent occurrence. It didn’t even matter so much that it was Steve being insulted, but instead more that the guy was comfortable insulting just anyone who he found different. He opened his mouth, ready to go off, aware that this was going to ruin Bucky’s first impression of him.

Bucky, however, was already in motion, fluid and sharp. Steve barely caught the actions, his eyes straining to catch the detail of Bucky’s hand closing around the man’s wrist and spinning him away from the doorway and to the wall, his ‘metal’ arm suddenly held against the man’s throat. The eye contact was intense once the motion settled, the offender wide-eyed and openly frightened. Bucky was calm and still.

“Try again,” he ordered, tone low and deep.

Steve stared at him, all his anger gone. He’d never had anyone do that. He’d never had anyone actually… defend him like that. His friends, as they were, had protested a little, nervously, and tried to keep Steve back, but he’d never had anyone do anything like that before.

It didn’t help just exactly how _hot_ Bucky was right now, all cool anger and deep voice and flashing eyes.

The guy cleared his throat hard. “Ah- my bad, dude. I didn’t know he was your-”

“Roommate.” Bucky pushed up, the guy’s feet leaving the floor slightly. “So watch your ass and spread the word, or you and me can go one-on-one. Got it?” The undergraduate being so threatened nodded quickly and Bucky dropped him back to his feet, turning away and continuing down the hall with Steve. “Anyways. You’ll like Clint when you meet him. He’s a dumbass, but he’s funny when he’s not watching cat videos at three a.m.”

Steve blinked up at him, lost for words for a moment, then, “You don’t have to do that. I’ve heard worse and fought bigger guys. They’re just words. It didn’t hurt my feelings.” He pushed his hands in his pockets, looking away. Did Bucky think he was weak? Easily pushed around? That made sense- most people looking at him thought that. “Clint sounds cool. Cat videos sound interesting, but not at 3am.”

“It’s not about that. It’s about me,” Bucky said casually, a smile playing on his lips. “Gotta build up the street cred, you know? Can’t let people think they can insult me or my roommate and I’ll be chill with it.”

Steve grinned a little, shaking his head. “I’m scrappy,” he informed him. “I may be little, but I can take care of myself. My mom made me promise not to fight for the first week at least, so I have to try. I can’t really promise anything, though.” He laughed. “You’ll come in from your boxing and I’ll come in from a street fight and we’ll be well-matched. I won’t break your image.”

“Okay, I’m making you show me your moves.” Bucky looked up at the ceiling with an expression of mock-suffering. “You’re going to throw a punch wrong and break your hand, and then your art career is going to be over and I’ll have to watch from my desk as you drink yourself into a stupor and cut off your ear. It’s going to be terrible, Stevie.”

Stevie? His stomach did the funny little lurch again and he tried to temper how wide his grin was. “Excuse me, but you have to realize I take very good care of my hands. I did learn how to punch after breaking a few fingers when I was younger. And Van Gogh had a million mental health issues, it had nothing to do with his art. His art was his safe place.”

“Yeah, but no one remembers that, do they?” He arched his eyebrows with a smile down at Steve. “All they remember is a painting made of blue and depression. So we’re going to go over your moves at some point, and if you get in any street fights, you’re going to call me. It’s for me, not you. Ear-less people just freak me out. I don’t want to look at that all day.”

Steve laughed, grinning up at the taller boy. “And you, a deaf-ed major? Shame on you. What if they’re deaf because of some terrible accident and they don’t have an ear? You can’t say, _oh, I’m sorry Van Gogh, you freak me out, I can’t teach you.”_

He’d never call Bucky during a fight- not that he’d have time anyway, things usually escalated really quickly- but the idea that Bucky _wanted_ him to, even as a joke, was… nice. He’d never had a friend like that.

He straightened. “And excuse me, Bucky, but his _Starry Night_ piece is not just depression, it’s also an incredible work of art.” One of the few that his colorblindness didn’t wreck.

“It reminds me of drowning,” Bucky disagreed absently, holding the door open for Steve. “I can’t imagine it made him feel much differently. It’s a good thing to be able to create with your pain, and it won’t always be pretty when you do that, but it’s a shame that that’s the piece people remember him for.”

Steve agreed. “The sunflower piece is actually amazing, and there’s a lot of others that deserve more recognition. He wasn’t always so unhappy. But people just like that one and forget the rest.” He headed down the stairs. “Are you into art at all?” Everyone knew Van Gogh, so that wasn’t that abnormal.

“No,” Bucky admitted, somewhat ruefully. “My sister likes it. She dragged me to a few museums here and there, but I was always more interested in chasing down my brothers than sitting and looking at paintings. Some art, though, I could stare at for hours. You just have to find the right piece.”

“That’s true.” Steve smiled, thinking about that. Everyone connected differently, so everyone’s enjoyment of a different piece was unique. Clearly the mandala meant something to him- it was the only art or decoration he’d brought at all. Steve would need to examine it later. “You have siblings? How many do you have?”

“Three,” he said, sliding his hands into his pocket with a smile. “One sister and two brothers. They’re my half-siblings, but I like most of them.” He grinned at that. “What about you, any family?”

 _Three_ siblings. Steve wondered what that would be like. “Just my mom,” he said with a smile. “She’s very cool, though. She’s an ICU nurse.” Which was ironic, that as strong as his parents were and as involved as she was with medicine, her son would be born with so many issues. It was lucky for him though- she was probably the reason he’d survived this long. “My dad was a soldier, he was killed in action when I was a kid.”

“Yeah?” He glanced down at Steve, his ever-present smile quelling very slightly. “I’m sorry about that. What branch was he in?”

“He was a Marine.” Steve was always proud of that. “It’s okay. He did what he loved, he would’ve been happy going out like that. Sucks for us, because we miss him, but he would be glad he served his country.”

“My brother’s a Marine,” Bucky told him, a smile returning to his lips. “It’s what my old man wants me to be, too. I guess Eli’s probably under the same pressure, but he was the smart one.” He laughed. “He ran off and joined a hippie commune in Cali just to prove a point. I don’t even know how he found one, it’s not like we’re in the sixties.”

Steve snorted. “A hippie commune?” He picked up a tray of food. “That’s kind of cool. What exactly does he do there?”

“Grow vegetables.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure, really. They own some land out in the country and are all just trying to live off it. I know it sounds like a cult, believe me. I went out there to make sure it’s not.” He grinned. “It’ll probably go down in flames someday… but he’s happy now, you know?”

“What about your sister? What’s she like?” He was a good big brother. Steve smiled up at him, then frowned a little when Bucky headed straight for the candy shelf and Steve followed. “Are you about to eat candy for lunch?”

“Dude, we live in the dorms.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “This is the one time in my life where I can eat pre-packaged donuts for a meal and no one thinks twice about it.”

“Bucky, you cannot just eat pre-packaged donuts for lunch.” Steve tried to look severe. “If you want to box, how are you going to stay healthy?”

Bucky grinned down at him and added a pack of Twizzlers to his tray. “Fruit,” he stated, pointing at them. “It balances it out.”

“That’s not fruit.” Steve stared up at him. “It’s all sugar! It’s just food coloring and sugar! You’re going to die of nutritional deficiency.” He put an apple on Bucky’s tray. “Fruit,” he informed him. 

“The apples here taste like plastic,” he complained, but he didn’t take it back off, instead accompanying Steve to the grill and observing as Steve took a basket of French fries. “Will you think I’m a hypocrite if I tell you to increase your protein and watch your nutritional balances?” He asked, eyeing the fries shrewdly.

“Yes,” Steve informed him. “For your information, I take a ton of supplements and things. I eat much better than you do.” He eyed him, then sighed and grabbed some chicken tenders. “Happy?”

“Yes.” And Bucky’s smile was wide and white and bright, the kind of smile that romcom actors and superheroes had. “Very.”

Steve focused back on his tray. No one should have a smile like that in real life, he thought as he felt his face burn. No one should be that gorgeous. It was just rude and Steve could never do it justice in art. “Well, good,” he said when he realized he’d been quiet for a moment too long. “That’s what I live for- making my new roommate happy.”

“Well, then how could we not get along?” Bucky sounded cheerful. “You need to put some muscle on and I can help. Come on, I have way too much Dining Plus, I’ll buy your lunch.”

“No, you don’t need to do that,” Steve protested quickly. “I’ll be okay, I’ve got money.”

“Yeah, and when I’ve burnt through every cent I have, you can buy me lunch.” He swiped his card, ignoring Steve’s further protests. “Put the food on the counter and let’s find a place to sit.”

Steve sighed. “Jerk,” he informed him, unable to keep the smile off his face this time. “You _will_ burn through it all, eating donuts all the time.” They were expensive, like all the junk food.

“Shut up, punk.” Bucky laughed, pushing him aside and carrying his tray over to a table.

* * *

“Psst. Steve.” He was woken by what felt suspiciously like a balled-up sock being thrown at his face. “Steve, wake up.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” Steve moaned, rolling over. “If you’re drowning just get on with it.”

Quiet snickering. “We’re in a dorm room, how would I be drowning, Steven?”

He opened an eye. “I don’t _know._ What do you want?”

Bucky was perched atop his bunk, legs dangling down as he pulled his black combat boots onto his feet. “I’m going to meet up with some friends. Do you want to come, or do you want to sleep? If you’re a good student, that’s okay too.”

Steve considered this for a long moment, then sighed and pushed himself up. “Fine,” he groused. “I’ll go. Just to make sure you don’t get yourself killed or do something really dumb.”

“I have yet to get myself killed, though dumb actions are my everyday,” he remarked cheerfully, hopping down to the ground and landing surprisingly lightly. “You’re the street fighter, remember?”

Steve laughed and hopped out of bed, pulling on a jacket and his shoes. “That’s true. I’m a street fighter. I’m going to have a shirt made.” He stretched and looked at the clock. “God, why do your friends hang out at time ungodly hour? Do they have something against visiting each other in daylight? Are they vampires?”

“Well, jury’s still out on Natasha.” He laughed, pulling on his leather jacket. “But no- really, she just works late and this is the only time she’s ever free on Sundays. Don’t give her sass or she might kill you, by the way.”

Steve snorted. “What does she do for a living? Isn't she a student?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, tying his hair back in the usual bun. “But she’s trying to pay off her loan as she accrues it, so she’s gone at random hours. She’s one of those loss prevention people that catches theft. It’d be cool if she wasn’t so frightening.” He gestured and led Steve down the hall to the elevator, leaning against the wall as they waited.

“Wow.” Steve blinked up at him. “So she catches people in stores who try to steal?” That would be a cool job. “Are they hiring?”

“You’ll have to ask her when you see her.” He glanced down at him, openly fond. “You know you can’t just tackle anyone who tries to take stuff though, right?”

Steve had never met anyone who was so upfront with their feelings and emotions. He gave a smile back, unable to look away from those crinkly warm blue-brown eyes. “That’s what it sounds like I’d be doing,” he informed him, huddling closer into his coat as they left.

“Is that the best coat you have?” Bucky asked after a few minutes, raising an eyebrow down at him. The moonlight shimmered across his skin, smoothing his imperfections and making his eyebrow rod glint. 

Steve tried very hard not to stare at how pretty his roommate was. “It’s fine,” he informed him. “I’m just skinny.”

“Skinny and _asthmatic,_ do you know how far the temperature drops at night, you punk?” He was shrugging out of the leather jacket before Steve could reply to that, revealing rippling muscles and ink. “No. _No,”_ he said over Steve’s breath when Steve opened his mouth to protest. “No, put it on before you freeze to death and I hafta lug your corpse back to your momma. Now.” He waved the leather at Steve, immovable.

Steve took it reluctantly, shrugging into it and inhaling the scent. It smelled like leather and something vaguely woodsy. Bucky wore cologne, he realized absently. He’d never realized how hot leather was. “If _you_ die, how the hell am I going to lug your corpse back?” He grumbled. “I’m not glass.”

“No one said you were glass.” Bucky continued walking. “But you’re my roommate and my responsibility. Got it?”

Steve looked up at his stubborn face and gave a smile. “Got it,” he agreed, a little embarrassed, but mostly just enjoying how warm and good-smelling the jacket was. “So your friends. What should I expect? You’ve told me about Natasha and Clint.”

“Yeah.” He looked vaguely uncomfortable now. “The only other one is Tony. He’s… a lot. I don’t really know how to describe him, you’ll either want to kill him or be his best friend.”

Steve snorted. “I don’t know how to take that. I guess we’ll see.” He put his hands in the jacket pocket. “I look like a little kid. You’re giant.” He grinned up at Bucky. “Unnecessarily tall.”

“Stuff a sock in it.” He laughed, turning away and continuing. They were off the edge of campus now, and seemed to be headed towards a small and pretty house only a stone’s throw away. Steve would have assumed that it belonged to a professor or dean, but Bucky jogged up the steps, rapped on the door with his knuckles, and opened it without waiting for a response. “After you.”

“Thanks.” Steve gave a quick smile, heading up the steps and steeling himself, then walking into the front room and looking around. Maybe one of the professors had a kid at the school and that’s why they were here, he thought, examining a framed piece of artwork in the entryway. It was nicely geometric, a design full of angles and diagonals. Bucky rested a hand briefly on his back in reassurance, then passed him and stepped through the doorway.

“Hey,” he greeted the people there, and Steve edged around him to inspect them.

There was a gorgeous redheaded girl sitting on the floor who was unlacing a pair of boots from her feet. She glanced up, giving a small nod to them, and Steve tried to ignore the way her eyes lingered on him, clearly assessing. This would be Natasha, then.

Beside her was a guy in a black T-shirt with a purple design on it. He was holding a Nerf gun and was talking to Natasha animatedly, gesturing with one hand and the gun. She redirected her attention from Steve to glance at the other boy, eyebrows raising, and Steve tuned in enough to catch the end of his statement. “-be there, slaughtering all in our path, and we will be victorious. You’re going to love it, and we’re going to kick ass, but we _can’t do it without you._ You have to ask off work. Come on, Thor already is in, and Tony, and-” he glanced around at Bucky, who nodded as he moved to sit on the floor opposite them, tossing a beanbag into the air for Steve to catch.

“Yeah, I’m in,” Bucky agreed grimly. “Hydra’s gotta pay for last year’s _embarrassment.”_

“You’re going to kill people with Nerf guns?” Steve asked interestedly, fumbling the beanbag a little bit but catching it in the end.

The blonde eyed him. “Okay so you could maybe be a guerilla fighter,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re small, you could hide in places we can’t. Are you in or out?”

Steve grinned a little and sat near Bucky. “I’ve never shot a Nerf gun.”

“Aw, shit.” The boy sighed. “Bucky, I told you we need another _sniper._ Not a newbie.”

“We have you and me, that’s plenty of sniping potential,” Bucky dismissed. “Clint, Natasha, this is Steve. He’s my new roommate, he’s cool. Steve, this is Natasha and Clint.”

“Hey.” Natasha gave him a small lift of her chin as greeting, looking down as she began relacing her boots. “Clint, Bucky, and Thor are avid members of Humans versus Zombies. You’ve probably seen them around campus.”

With the name, it clicked. Steve _had_ in fact heard of them on campus. They were hated by the ‘normal’ people, mainly because sometimes the nerf bullets missed and popped off the shoulders or heads of bystanders who had nothing to do with the game. The game, so far as Steve had ever understood, was a complex sort of game of tag. Once a human was tagged, they became a zombie. If a human shot a zombie with a nerf gun, they were stunned for a while. Inside buildings was safe, he’d been told once in a long-suffering tone, because professors had gotten mad about the war going on even in class.

“Clint’s trying to get me and Tony in,” Natasha continued.

“We already got Tony in,” Bucky disagreed. “We need you, Nat. We need your ferocity. Think about how much pent-up rage you could release. You could help us show Steve the ropes, if he wants in.”

Steve blinked at them, then started laughing. “I wondered where you crazy people were the rest of the year,” he said with a grin. “My classmate got shot by a man wearing a bald cap and an actual sequined cape last year because his jacket had a stripe of green on the sleeve.”

“Just another glorious adventure,” Clint agreed happily, then focused on Nat. “Aw come on, you’re going to love it. I won’t ask you to wear any costumes or anything, I promise. Maybe just the bison hat.”

She let out a laugh. “A _bison_ hat? What in god’s name is that?”

Clint leapt to his feet and pounded up the stairs. Steve grinned up at Bucky. “So that’s your old roommate? I can see why your chaos and his chaos were problems together. Who’s Tony?”

“He’s our friend, and he lives here.” Bucky grinned back, then glanced at Natasha. “Where is he? We’re in _his_ house.”

“It’s my house too,” she reasoned. “Okay, it’s mostly his. He’s making bean dip in the kitchen. Tony!” She turned her head to scowl into the kitchen.

“Shut up, I’m making dip!” a guy yelled back.

“Bucky and his roommate are here!” She called, rolling her eyes.

“Well, unless _they_ want to get in here and slave over this bean dip, they’ll have to wait.” His laughter drifted down the hallway and Bucky laughed, nudging Steve’s shoulder.

“His bean dip is actually amazing,” he told him confidentially.

“Is it?” Steve felt a strange wash of warmth. He’d never made friends easily, but as he watched Clint bound down the stairs and plunk a giant hat on Natasha’s head, he thought he might be happy with these insane people.

The bison hat, as it turned out, was a two-foot towering structure made of questionable fur, a short horn curling out of the left and right sides. Clint looked at Nat wearing it with undiluted adoration.

“Just imagine _destroying_ those fuckers in that and your purple leather jacket,” he said dreamily. “They’ll cry. Most of them are already afraid of you, rightfully so.”

“Take this hat off my head, or I will destroy it.” She stared up at him until he did, then pointed at it. “Get it out of my house, never let it in my sight again, and I’ll join in the stupid game.”

“Yes.” Bucky punched the air, looking aggressively pleased with this turn of events. He grinned down at Steve. “You’re going to love it. And if you get turned, we will avenge you.”

“By killing you in a variety of badass ways,” Clint agreed. “Because you are the enemy, once you’re tagged. Just so you know.”

“Do the humans ever win?” Steve asked in interest and Clint shook his head.

“We end up collapsing under the weight of the Horde. But we’ve got Nat now. And a dude who can hide in the lake or under the bridge and get those sons of bitches.” He pointed at Steve. “You could be our secret weapon. You could be launched over a damn wall.”

Steve stared at him. “I _could,”_ he marveled, the idea a fascinating one as he tried to consider just how cool that would be.

He’d never had friends who didn’t treat him like glass. This was kind of awesome.

“ _No._ No one’s launching anyone over a wall,” Bucky protested immediately as Clint started cackling. “Absolutely not, we’re not flinging him anywhere. He can lie in ambush, but that’s all. We can’t risk the mods getting mad at us again.”

“All right, gremlins. Here’s your dip,” a dark-haired guy said, emerging from the kitchen with a bag of tortilla chips and a large bowl of some sort of cheese-and-bean dip. He set it down and inspected Steve, smiling. “Hey, I’m Tony,” he said, offering a hand as Natasha stole the dip.

Steve blinked at him. Tony was their age and had dark hair and brown eyes like Bucky, though he was less muscular. His beard had been cut into a somewhat-whimsical goatee, and his smile was a cute one. Bucky had friends who were nearly as attractive as he was, apparently.

“Thank you,” he said, taking a chip. “They’re convincing me to join Humans Versus Zombies.”

“We’re going to fling him over bushes and walls,” Clint informed Tony, grinning at Bucky. “C’mon, Barnes, how many times have you thrown me off Deho’s balcony onto unsuspecting humans below?”

“At least three,” Bucky agreed promptly. “But you deserved it and Steve is actually a good person. Also, that was last year, _before_ we pissed off the moderators.”

“Hm. He has a point.” Natasha ate her chip, smiling, and Bucky rolled his eyes.

“You’re all insufferable people.”

“You’re desperately fond of us,” Tony told him, settling to sit beside Steve. “You’re Bucky’s new roommate?”

“Yeah.” Steve gave him a quick smile. “He said this is your house? It would be cool to be this close to campus.”

“You ever want a short commute in the morning, you let me know.” Tony winked and Bucky threw a chip at him.

“Shut up and tell us about your summer,” Bucky said, a little shortly, and Tony’s grin was wide as he launched into a story about spending the summer at his dad’s house in Malibu.

Steve listened and watched as they laughed and talked, pulling up battle plans and sharing what had happened to them during the summer, fitting him into their little circle with little to no effort, and wondered happily if this was going to be what his sophomore year was like.


	2. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group hangs out before classes start, and then they attend the boxing match for Bucky, Thor, and Natasha.

It had been a week since Bucky had moved in with Steve, and classes were about to start. In a way, Bucky was almost dreading classes. Everything had been so… languid and easy for once. After the chaotic summer he’d spent with his mom, he found himself loving the predictability of his routine now. It was safe, it was secure, it was solid, and it almost never deviated.

He’d wake up, exercise downstairs in the basement work-out room, come back up to shower in the communal bathroom (it never failed to skeez him out and he again regretted not being able to room with Nat and Tony), and then return to his room to nudge Steve awake. They’d eat breakfast together and then wander out to the library or the Quad to spend the day, occasionally joined by Nat, Clint, Tony, and/or Thor, the last of whom had nearly toppled Steve over when he met him and clapped his shoulder.

It was amazing how easily Steve fit into their lives. He was kind and funny, and Natasha’s approval of his art had nearly made him glow. He laughed at Clint’s jokes, marveled over Tony’s inventions, and his aim was so bad with a frisbee that it actually presented a challenge to Thor’s skills. It wasn’t long before he started fully relaxing and becoming comfortable with the group, which was encouraging to see.

He had a startlingly vivid temper which was as unbelievably cute as it was problematic, and Bucky had been forced to distract him multiple times when Steve had wanted to go and yell at a random stranger who had done something Steve deemed immoral. (This list included but was not limited to: tugging on the leash of their dog, yelling at their girlfriend, littering, dog-earing a book, and wolf-whistling.) It was adorable, but also concerning when one took into account Steve’s size and health issues. It would be easy for him to get into a situation he couldn’t easily get out of, and Bucky found his long-buried protectiveness surge back to settle just under his skin at all times.

It was all the more irritating because he hadn’t known Steve long enough to be protective of him, and because Steve clearly didn’t want to be protected. He didn’t want to be seen as weak, which _wasn’t_ how Bucky saw him… but it was how Steve would take it. He tried to curb the instinct, tried to aim for being casual or nonchalant, but he couldn’t help but stick nearby and keep an eye on him.

It didn’t help that Steve was shockingly beautiful, all slimness and eyes and hair and lips. Bucky felt breathless every time his roommate smiled at him, and there was only a matter of time before that became a serious problem. They were _roommates_ and Steve was almost certainly straight.

Not, that was, for Tony’s lack of trying.

“You’ve never gone sailing?” Tony laughed, sitting close beside Steve as he watched his pencil sketch something. Bucky resisted his impulse to ‘miss’ and hit Tony in the head with the baseball he was throwing around with Nat and Clint. “Really?”

Steve snorted, focused on what he was doing. “No, we never had the time. My dad was a Marine and loved the water so we went to the beach sometimes, but sailing’s for people with boats and we never had a boat.” His lips curved up in a smile. “My mom would’ve liked that, but we always had other stuff to do.”

“What are you doing for Fall Break?” Tony’s eyes were as caught by that smile as Bucky’s were, and Bucky threw the ball hard enough that it smacked off Clint’s shoulder and flung in the opposite direction.

“Easy there, tiger,” Nat murmured in Bucky’s ear as she passed him to check on Clint, who was complaining about fouls.

“Fall Break?” Steve sounded surprised and when Bucky glanced around, he saw Steve looking up at Tony, frowning slightly, eyes distant in the way they were when someone distracted him from what he was drawing. “I guess going home? For a bit.”

“We take a trip to the lake every year,” Bucky found himself saying before Tony could, and was rewarded by a dirty look from his friend. “You could come with us if you wanted.”

Steve gave him a bright smile, focusing properly. “I guess I could see. I don’t know if Mom has time off or not, with all this seasonal stuff going around she’s been really busy. She said she’d try, so I’ll probably go see her for a bit. I’m all she’s got.”

“That’s cool of you.” Bucky felt himself smiling. “She probably appreciates that.” He raised his hand just in time to catch the baseball Nat flung at him and frowned at her. “Rude,” he remarked, and tossed it back. “You guys excited about classes starting tomorrow?”

“ _Hell no.”_ Natasha scowled slightly. “My courseload is insane this semester.”

“I’m ready,” Tony said, stretching as he stood. “I think it’s going to be a pretty solid courseload, I’ve got some good professors.”

“I’m just in school to get a degree and be all official.” Clint rolled his eyes. “I can do this shit handcuffed. Jesus, Nat.” He dodged a throw and grinned at her.

“I get to start glass,” Steve offered. “I’ve never been able to work with glass before, so that will be cool. What about you, Buck?” He picked up his sketchbook again and kept working. The nickname had slipped out a few days ago and Bucky had almost died on the spot.

He couldn’t stop his grin from spreading now, either, and was grateful that Steve was too busy to see it. “I guess I’m excited,” he agreed. “Nat and I are taking a class on Ancient Egypt together, so that’s cool. Mostly I’m here for extracurriculars, though. We’ve got a boxing match come Thursday.” He pointed at Natasha, who nodded with a grin, clearly already relishing the thought of stacking more wins onto her already-impressive record.

She was better at karate, if Bucky was being honest, but she was a fair boxer nonetheless.

“And then ASL Club starts next week and HvZ is in just a couple weeks now,” Bucky continued, catching the pitch thrown to him.

“Things pick up quick when you’ve got things to do,” Steve mused with a smile. “Where’s the boxing match?”

“The gy-” Bucky broke off as the baseball nailed him in the side of the head. He staggered, blinking at the sudden ringing in his ears, and raised one finger to poke at the left one as he caught his balance. “Did you break my ear? Can ears be broken?”

“Yeah, they’ve got bones,” Nat agreed, crossing to peer at the throbbing body part.

Steve was there suddenly, making him sit down. “Just sit until you’re steady,” he instructed as Clint ran to them, apologizing. “Until you’ve got your balance.” His hands were on Bucky’s arms, his shoulders, and it felt ridiculously good.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s no different than a punch,” Bucky assured him, catching his wrists as he looked up into his eyes. They were almost blue, but there was the smallest tinge of green to them.

“Yeah, and you’re not used to getting punched in the head without gloves,” Steve informed him, stilling slightly as he looked down at Bucky. He’d said that he couldn’t really see pinks, Bucky remembered suddenly. That was a shame. He’d never really know how gorgeous he was when he flushed like he was now. “In my experience, getting punched or hit in the head sucks a lot more than you think.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Clint frowned at him, crouching next to Bucky. Steve’s lips quirked.

“Not so much since Bucky doesn’t let me fight.”

“Yeah, because I like you alive and not in pieces,” Bucky snorted.

Steve laughed. “How’s your head?” He grinned, blue-green eyes dancing. “You’re being mouthy so it can’t be that bad.”

Bucky found it oddly hard to catch his breath for a minute, which surely only supported the idea that he had a concussion. He recovered, shaking his head quickly. “Yeah. I mean no! I’m fine. I’m always mouthy. I’m fine.” He realized he was still holding Steve’s wrists and released them quickly, trying not to show how off-balance he was.

Clint muttered something and Bucky looked up to see his friend tapping something on his screen, giving Natasha a dirty look. “Fine, you have a point,” he grumbled.

Steve blinked back at them, then frowned at Bucky as Nat laughed and Tony clicked his tongue at them. “Nothing’s determined yet,” he informed them, and Bucky frowned back at Steve.

“What’s happening?”

“Marching band drama. We keep up with them on Twitter.” Natasha winked at them and Bucky felt his frown increase, but he knew for a fact that they _did,_ in fact, follow marching band members on Twitter. The team was notorious for airing their shit on social media.

“All right,” he allowed uncertainly, then glanced at his watch. “Shit. Well, I’ve got to go ice my ear and sort my stuff for tomorrow.” He stood, tugging at his ear and working his jaw, which clicked.

“I need to go anyway and check my stuff,” Steve agreed, and waved to the others as they headed off. Steve looked up at him as soon as they were out of eyesight. “You may want to get checked,” he said, frowning, a little v of concern between his eyebrows. “Head injuries are nothing to mess with, Bucky.”

“It’s just a baseball. It’ll bruise up and be fine.” God, why did he look so cute when he was worried? Bucky shook his head, pulling his hair out of his and running a hand through it. “I lied, I’m not doing any work on school stuff. That sounds terrible.”

Steve frowned up at him. “What? You have school tomorrow, you should be getting stuff ready!” He waved his sketchbook at him and Bucky realized suddenly that he hadn’t actually seen any of Steve’s sketches. He’d left his book around, but Bucky hadn’t really been able to see any other than vague sideways glimpses.

Bucky blinked at it, distracted suddenly by this, and caught the sketchbook with a light hand, careful not to actually take it away in case it was a sensitive subject. Some people were weird about other people seeing their work. “Wait, I actually don’t know if you’re any good, I’ve never actually asked. Can I see your stuff?” He glanced at Steve’s face hopefully.

Steve blinked at him, then fiddled with the edge of it and held it out. “Sure,” he said with a little shrug that he clearly wanted to look nonchalant but really just looked very nervous. “I’m alright. Nothing like some of my classmates. Some of their stuff, you’d swear you could reach out and grab it.”

“Excuses,” Bucky scoffed, and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to look through it. The sketchbook was nearly full. There were drawings of apples, dogs, a few of Bucky and his friends all grouped up, a bowl of dip and chips, and then a full spread of some trees near the park. The next pages had a chess piece and a _very_ good sketch of Bucky’s tattoo, which had Bucky smiling all too broadly. After that was a pile of Nerf guns, a guy running away from a zombie with a Nerf gun, a drawing of the bison hat, and bits of pieces of the buildings around them.

“Jesus, Stevie.” Bucky stared down at the drawings, ignoring the buffs of irritation as the crowd moved around them. One guy shoulder-chucked Bucky on his way past and Bucky didn’t even notice, too busy looking at the spread of different dogs.

“Hey, it’s called common courtesy,” Steve snapped after the student, but he didn’t pursue him, instead was too busy watching Bucky’s face. “Like I said, they’re not… crazy.”

“They’re amazing,” Bucky disagreed fervently. “Look at my tattoo!” He flipped back to it, studying the lines and the shading. “It’s incredible. You’re incredible, no wonder you’re an art major.” He turned back to a sketch that was clearly of Natasha and Tony laughing at Clint, his eyes wandering across their features. “Incredible,” he echoed softly.

Steve laughed a little, shaking his head with a sheepish smile. “Thanks. I like them.”

“You should!” Bucky pressed the sketchbook back into his hands, shaking his head. “Steve, you could really be someone, you could make a big difference. That’s so cool, man. I mean it.” He continued moving, following the crowd back toward their dormitory. “You should go home and practice painting.”

“Ugh no, I’m not in any painting classes this semester, thank god.” Steve wrinkled his nose. “Half the colors look the same and no one ever knows what I’m doing. At least with my doodling you can tell.” He grinned up at Bucky. “What am I going to do with some doodles, Buck? You can’t draw world peace.”

“No,” Bucky agreed, slinging an arm around his shoulders and pressing a hand to Steve’s chest. “But you can _distract_ the world, my skinny friend. That’s the entire point of art, to reduce isolation. You can’t stop a war, but you _can_ give people the strength to win it.” He released him, jogging ahead to hold the door open. “Practice painting. Do it in black and grey if you don’t feel like color. Or all shades of blue.”

Steve paused in the doorway, looking up at Bucky, then gave him a soft, warm smile that Bucky had never seen on his face, the expression making his eyes bluer and happier. “You’re pretty cool, Barnes,” he said, then ducked his head and walked inside, holding open the next door for Bucky.

 _Christ_ how was he going to get anything done? Bucky struggled to walk a straight line and offered a mumble of thanks, running a hand through his hair.

* * *

He woke up a few nights later, muddled and confused at the bizarre sound that had woken him in the first place, and groggily noted the door closing and clicking shut. He looked around and registered suddenly that Steve wasn’t in bed, his blankets askew in a way he never left them. He could definitely just be going to take a piss, but that wheezy sound had been so weird...

“Stevie?” Bucky rubbed at his eyes, rolling out of bed clumsily and just barely landing on his feet. He had a brief moment of satisfaction at that— Daniel would be proud— and then he crossed the dark room to the door, pulling it open. “Steve?” He echoed, rubbing his eyes as he peered down the lit hallway.

Steve was sitting about ten feet down the wall, shuddering and pressing what Bucky realized was his inhaler to his mouth, taking in a deep breath and holding it. He was shaking, eyes too dark and skin too pale, and was gripping his knee and inhaler with white-knuckled hands, his breath coming in and out with that same horrible wheezing sound once he released it.

“Oh, shit.” Bucky was wide-awake in an instant and ducked back inside, snatching the first fabric he saw. He was down by Steve’s side by the time he realized that it was his leather jacket, but he was still in motion, leaning Steve forward to drape it around his shoulders. “Shit, Stevie, hey. Hey, what do you need?”

Bucky knew jack-all about asthma attacks, but this looked like one. Had to be one because of the inhaler, didn’t it? They needed to breathe, and maybe they needed to be warm? Steve was always cold. What else did you do for asthmatic people who were having an attack?

His only comparable experience had been coaching someone through a panic attack, so that’s what he fell back on.

“Hey, Steve, it’s okay. I got you, it’s okay,” he said quickly, crouching in front of him and settling his hands on Steve’s shoulders. “Look at me, can you look at me?”

Steve took in another puff of his inhaler and held his breath, shaking and shuddering, but looked up at Bucky with wide eyes, his free hand raising to grip Bucky’s tattooed arm with surprising force for someone so slender. He shook hard again and his head jerked back, slamming into the wall behind him, and his hand spasmed on Bucky’s as he coughed.

“‘M sorry,” he managed, voice thin and reedy, nothing like his voice normally. “M okay.”

“Steve, shut up.” Bucky’s voice was anything but steady. “Okay. Okay, hang on.” He moved to sit against the wall and then picked Steve up, settling him on the floor between his legs. He anchored his left arm loosely around Steve’s shoulders, allowing him to maintain his grip on Bucky’s wrist, and settled his right hand against Steve’s chest.

“Okay,” Bucky murmured, resting his chin on top of Steve’s head now that he was sure he couldn’t further injure himself. “Okay, Stevie. Can I have you breathe in when I say? We need to take slow breaths, because panicking will make it harder to breathe. You need to be calm and you need to get air in. So breathe _in,_ two, three, four. Hold it. And breathe _out,_ two, three, four. Okay, that was a good start. In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four.” He stroked soft, slow circles against Steve’s collarbone with his thumb, shutting his eyes as the struggling, wheezing breaths in the slender body he held against his own began to calm down. “In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four. I’ve got you, Stevie. You’re safe, I got ya.”

After what felt like hours but was probably only a handful of minutes, the horrible squeaking, jagged quality to his breathing eased and softened, his heartbeat beneath Bucky’s hand slowing and the breaths he was taking turned into proper breaths, deep and unlabored.

He sagged back into Bucky, sighing. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice a little hoarse. “I know it’s not fun to be there when that happens. You did good, though.” He made absolutely no effort to move in the slightest, collapsed back against Bucky’s chest comfortably. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing for trying to breathe,” Bucky said a little too shortly, his arms tightening around the boy caught within them. “Are you okay? What do you need, what can I get you?”

Steve’s voice smiled a little. “Nothing. I’m okay now. That was one of the worse ones, it’s not usually that bad. I just need to take some meds and stay up for a minute.” He shook his head a little. “I haven’t had an attack in my sleep in a while. Usually I can go somewhere and head them off.”

“Wake me up next time.” Bucky hardened his voice, trying not to leave any room for argument. “I mean it, Steve. Wake me up.”

Steve let out a breath. “Okay,” he agreed after a moment or two. “I’m- I was trying not to freak you out. I know they look really bad. They’re not always-“

“Yeah!” Bucky interrupted heatedly. “They _do_ look bad! And you were about to just sit out here and suffer by yourself! I told you that you’re my responsibility and I meant it, Steve. You have an attack, you have any kind of problem, and you can tell me. I don’t care if it’s not pretty.”

Well, so much for curbing his protective streak. Bucky looked up at the ceiling, working his jaw, then realized he was still wrapped around Steve, his arms holding him captive. “Shit,” he said quickly, loosening his grip. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Steve looked back at him, startled. His color was better now, his eyes didn’t look so big in his face. “ _I’m_ sorry. You’re right, I know you’d have helped me. It’s habit.” He shook his head and gave Bucky a little smile. “You sure you don’t want to be a nurse? You did a pretty good job for a rookie.”

“I did a _terrible_ job, you absolute punk.” Bucky gave Steve’s head a gentle push. “You can bet your ass I’m going to go in and look up whatever the hell I’m supposed to do. Come on, you said you have to take medicines.” He disentangled himself carefully from around Steve and pulled him to his feet, keeping his hands slow and gentle. His roommate was breakable, and bruisable, too. Bucky held off for a moment, eyeing Steve’s steadiness, then gestured toward their room, following behind so he could catch him if he fell.

Steve glanced back at him, then gave a little grin. “I’m okay,” he assured him with a tired smile. “They’re exhausting, and the attacks hurt sometimes, from how hard you’re working, but that’s mostly it. Sore, achy, tired. Not all that different from after a good streetfight.” His grin widened a little, opening the door. “I’m surprised I made it all the way down there.” He examined his bed and shook his head, going to the top cabinet of his desk drawer. Bucky had seen him taking an arsenal of medication daily, and hadn’t really asked about it, but he hadn’t seen these pills yet that Steve eyed unhappily, taking a long drink of water.

Bucky sat at his own desk, endeavoring not to look as tense as he felt. “You’re not helping matters, Rogers. And you better be talking some good game about street fights, if you were actually in them, I’m going to have a stroke.”

“Well, I’ve been in a lot of fights,” Steve said, sitting down and swallowing the pills. “I mostly get my ass kicked. Every so often I get lucky and win, but it’s the point of the thing that matters. It’s the fact that someone made a stand and said something, usually. I might get my ass kicked, but I do get some hits in first and they think twice before they do whatever they did a second time.” He rooted around in his other drawer, pulling out a granola bar and pulling off the wrapper. “Do you want half?”

“No.” Bucky was busy massaging his knuckles. He knew that it was in his head, that they didn’t _actually_ ache, but it was surprisingly convincing all the same. Who the hell looked at his ninety-pound asthmatic roommate and decided to _fight_ him? It didn’t matter how aggressive Steve was, it was still such an obvious fight. It was like getting charged by a Chihuahua puppy. “Next time, just tell me. About attacks or fights. I can help.”

There was that little soft smile again that was so rarely there. “Okay,” he agreed, and bumped Bucky’s knee with his foot. “You can relax, Buck. I’m not going to die. That’s what my druglord stash is for.” He gestured expansively at the bottles lined up there. “These are like little Philosopher’s Stones.”

“You’re not making me feel any better,” Bucky informed him dryly, then turned, opening his computer and starting to do research on asthma attacks. “Just let me know when you’re allowed to go to bed,” he said over his shoulder, rifling around his desk with one hand for a hair tie before succeeding and tying up the hair he held in his other hand.

Steve leaned over to look at his screen and grinned, sitting back. “You did better than my dad the first time,” he said, in a surprisingly good mood. “He cried. Had _no_ idea what to do. When my mom explained it for the first time, he didn’t really think it was as bad as she told him.” He snorted. “He was a good man, but a little… old-fashioned. Thought she was worrying too much.”

Bucky pursed his lips briefly, scrolling down on the website as he continued to read. “Were you close with your old man?”

Steve took a long drink, considering as his fingers played with a pencil. “He loved me,” he said after a while. “He was never _mean_ or anything. He just wasn’t like that. He was very work-focused, and his work was the military, so.” He shrugged. “Are you close with yours? I mean, I know you guys think differently about things, but that doesn’t mean you’re not.”

“Nah,” Bucky dismissed, sparing him a brief glance before returning his attention to the screen. “Only one he’s proud of is Daniel. Maybe Becca, when she graduates, but… he thinks we’re a bit of a waste. That we aren’t ‘living up to our potential.’” He rolled his eyes. “He nearly turned purple when he saw my sleeve. I thought he was going to try to remove it himself, he was that offended.”

“What?” Steve’s tone hardened. “Why the hell would he think you’re a waste? You’re the best person. All you do is help people, that’s absolute bullshit. He should be proud of you.”

“Hey, you actually cussed.” Bucky glanced back at him with a grin and found him angry and tense, slender frame tight and eyes hard with the kind of protective anger Bucky had seen in him before. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Steve. My dad just expects a lot out of us, and he feels like if we aren’t living big lives… well, then what’s the point in living? He doesn’t think his kids should be lost in the ‘normal people’ who live and die without notice. Or, if we do, we should at least do it for our country.” He snorted. “Thus Eli and the hippie commune.”

Steve turned his glare on his bottle of water. “Still bullshit,” he grumbled. “He should be proud of you. You’re a good person. That should be enough.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so,” Bucky reasoned. “As I have little intention of leading a big life. A mundane one, small and good, sounds just fine to me.” He leaned over his computer with a frown, studying one of the diagrams on asthma and mentally making a note of it.

Steve stewed in his anger for another twenty minutes or so, sketching out what rather looked like a caricature of a faceless but tall man being absolutely beaned by a trashcan, but eventually relented and informed Bucky that he was going to sleep, and therefore Bucky needed to sleep, too.

They laid in their respective beds, quiet and still, and Bucky was almost asleep when he heard Steve murmur, “Thank you, Buck. Nobody’s sat through with me that way before, except my parents. It was nice. Helpful.”

“Anytime.” Bucky smiled into the darkness, shutting his eyes. “I’ve got your back.”

* * *

“Are the guys coming?” Natasha glanced back at the stands as she wrapped up her hands. 

“Tony and Clint for sure are,” Bucky agreed, clearing his throat. “I, uh… I think Steve is coming, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Uh-huh.” Nat eyed him. “And how’s that going?”

“I’m going to punch Tony in the face if he keeps putting the moves on him,” Bucky admitted ruefully. She laughed, bright and amused, and he glowered at her. “It’s not funny.”

“I didn’t know you were the jealous type,” she reflected, stretching now.

“Well, neither did I,” Bucky grumbled. “God, this is a disaster. He’s my roommate and the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen and now I’m that guy that has a crush on his roommate which is problem enough, but Tony’s making it all so much worse. And I swear he’s doing it just to fuck with me, too.”

“Eh. I don’t know.” She frowned slightly. “I think he may actually kind of like him.”

“But that’s worse. You see how that’s worse, right?” Bucky groaned and finished wrapping his own hands, glancing around. Thor was only a few feet away, chatting up a pair of volleyball girls with his easy, too-brilliant smile. Luckily, Thor was as straight as they came, because _no one_ could resist the man and then Bucky would be really screwed if he hit on Steve.

“Hey, piercings,” Nat reminded Bucky, and he made a noise of agreement, removing his eyebrow rod, his industrial, and the various other cartilage piercings that were scattered across his ears. He’d forgotten to take them off once, a hit had landed in his face, and his blood had gotten all over the mat. It had taken months for the holes to heal back up and enable him to be repierced.

“The guys are here,” she noted, and Bucky turned with a handful of jewelry to see Tony, Clint, and Steve walk through the doors. Tony was in the middle of telling what looked like a _very_ funny story, judging by the hand gestures and laughter from both Steve and Clint.

“God, I hope it’s not the tequila story,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“I _love_ the tequila story,” Nat enthused, roundly ignoring the scowl he shot at her.

“Weird,” Steve said as the group came up to them, smiling up at Bucky. “I’ve never seen you without your stuff in.”

“Yeah, I feel a bit naked,” Bucky admitted with a laugh, running his hand over his bun.

“There’s something just so awesome about a woman who can beat the absolute shit out of you,” Clint informed Nat, holding out a bottle of water. His shirt said _All my money’s on the hot redhead._

“Did you _make_ that?” She laughed, taking the bottle of water with a grin.

“Yes ma’am.” He turned around and the back had a grizzly bear with boxing gloves and _she’s Russian and punches bears for fun._ “Are there grizzly bears in Russia?” He asked, looking around to watch her shake her head with a bemused laugh.

Steve snorted at them and held out a bottle for Bucky. “Hydrate,” he informed him. “Tony says you never drink enough water.”

“Tony lies like a rug,” Bucky said, but took the bottle nonetheless. He poured his jewelry into the bandana he’d brought and held it out to Steve. “Mind holdin’ onto these for me?”

“Sure.” Steve carefully folded it into a neat little packet and tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat. “So how often do you win?” He asked as Nat, Clint and Tony got into an argument. “I haven’t actually seen you fight, I don’t know if you’re any good.” His lips twitched.

“I’m good, doll.” Bucky offered a crooked grin, which made Steve turn a little pink and had Bucky’s grin widening. “I hold my own pretty damn well, but you’ll see that yourself. All three of us are great, actually. Thor’s obviously got the size to back him up, and Nat’s fast as hell.”

Steve laughed. “I would _not_ want to fight Thor,” he agreed. Thor took delight in the fact that he was easily three times heavier than Steve and almost a foot and a half taller, often having Steve ‘help’ him with things. He looked back at Bucky. “I’m sure you’re very good. I’m interested to see what it’s like- I’ve never actually watched any boxing. You don’t have a silk jacket with a name on it like in the movies.” He sighed. “Shame.”

Bucky laughed. “No,” he agreed. “That’s for people way more important than little college undergrads.” He pulled his shirt off though, glancing back at the ring as he did. It would be time before too long. He focused back on Steve. “Don’t let Clint blow your ear out when he cheers for Nat,” he warned.

Steve was staring at him, but shook himself when Bucky looked back, pink washing over his cheekbones. “Yes, he’s a little exuberant,” he agreed, studiously watching the crowd. He was still pink. It was ridiculously cute. “Are they together? I can’t tell.”

“No one can,” Bucky commented fondly, glancing at the two briefly. “They don’t talk about it. I know Nat slept with Thor early last year, but they never actually dated. They were super open about that though, and no one’s said anything about her and Clint, so maybe they’re really just friends.”

“Hm.” Steve watched them for a moment, then looked back at Bucky, eyes skating over his body before fixing on his face. “That’s too bad. They’d be good together. I hope you win today, because I bet Tony thirty bucks that you’d last at least four rounds.” He grinned a little, his pupils wider now than they’d been.

“You bet on me?” Bucky knew he looked far too pleased with this.

“Of course I bet on you,” Steve scoffed. “I have to help keep your rep and that includes reminding people that you’re a badass who I can obviously bet on without the slightest fear of losing money.”

Bucky laughed and reached out, ruffling Steve’s hair because he couldn’t help himself. “Thanks. I-” he broke off, turning his head as the whistle blew, and he offered a smile. “Better go find your seats. Nat, Thor, we gotta go.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Thor rested one hand on Nat’s shoulder and one hand on Bucky’s. “We go to glorious victory is where we go.” He shot a wink over his shoulder to the girls he’d been flirting with and Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve as the girls both grinned and flipped their hair, heading back to the stands to take a seat.

“Go win,” Steve said, knuckle-bumping them (Thor’s made him stumble back a little, which always made the taller man laugh) and he took his seat as Clint bear-hugged Nat and ran to sit next to Steve with Tony who was, now that Bucky looked, sitting far too close to Steve. 

Bucky’s internal monologue was a string of expletives and he followed Thor and Nat back to their seats, glowering at the ring. Thor, of course, noticed nothing, and Nat just laughed. “Chill _out,_ ” she soothed. “Steve likes you. You know that, this is just pre-match nerves getting to you.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Or maybe he’d be won over by Tony’s charm, his sass, his grin, his genius, his money. Tony was one of Bucky’s friends for a reason-- he was a funny and genuinely good guy. There was a lot there to be attracted to, although Bucky was struggling somewhat to remember that just this minute. She probably had a point about the pre-match nerves. “If Tony fucks my soulmate, I’m not responsible for what happens to his face.”

Natasha choked on her water and Thor tuned in enough to pound on her back, which of course nearly knocked her out of her chair. “You’re supposed to swallow the water, Natasha,” Thor informed her, Australian accent thick. “Not breathe it.”

“My bad,” she agreed in a wheeze as the announcer began riling up the crowd. She turned her head to stare at Bucky, who looked resolutely forward. “No,” she protested, shaking her head as she coughed again. “No, don’t think that you can just say shit like that and then change the subject. Did you just call him--”

“Oh, look at that, you’re up.” Bucky put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her to her feet. They liked to open with Natasha and mix her matches in throughout-- she was good eye-candy for the crowd. She set her water bottle down, not breaking eye contact.

“We’re talking about this later, James.”

“God, I hate when you call me that. Get your ass in the ring.” He pointed and she clapped Thor’s forearm as she passed, swinging herself over the ropes in an easy, feline motion. Her opponent was a girl from Kent University, tall and more ostentatiously muscular than Nat. “She’ll be fine,” Bucky dismissed. He’d hardly ever seen Natasha lose, not one-on-one.

“Natasha is excellent,” Thor agreed, watching her appreciatively. “I’m not worried.”

Bucky glanced at him. “You guys haven’t… you know. Again, have you?”

He shrugged. “Physical relationships never just end,” he said enigmatically, then grinned as he watched the fight.

Natasha’s fight didn’t last long, she was too talented. Two hits to the face and a hard one to the stomach had the girl stumbling back and disoriented, and Nat made quick work of her after that. She went back to sit beside Bucky and Thor, looking satisfied, and Bucky avoided eye contact. They sent a few other members of the team in then before Thor, who the crowd went wild for as always. He was just too handsome, too likeable, too _huge_ not to cheer for. He was, of course, put up against their biggest contender, and the match started.

“It looks like two grizzly bears fighting,” Bucky observed, taking a drink of water.

“What is it with you Americans and grizzly bears? Do you not know there are other types?” Nat frowned at the ring, but didn’t disagree with him. Instead, she shot him a look. “So. It’s been two weeks. Soulmate.”

“Oh my god, you’re as bad as Tony,” Bucky muttered, taking another drink of water purely to stall and because Steve had given it to him.

Truthfully, he didn’t know how to answer this question. He was used to acting on his feelings, not discussing them casually with friends. His father had been very much in the ‘a strong man is a stoic man’ camp, and it had rubbed off on Bucky more than he’d liked to admit. He didn’t want to discuss this, not now, not here, maybe not ever.

The truth, he allowed himself to admit to himself as he watched Thor laugh after being punched in the face, was that he was falling in love with his roommate. Obviously, as he had mentioned to Natasha, this was a problem. They lived together, and Bucky wasn’t even slightly sure Steve was gay. Sure, he blushed sometimes, but that could always be out of morality-- Bucky was half naked, Bucky was touching him, things like that. It could be simply the blush of a sheltered boy unsure how to react at another boy’s physical actions. Also, he liked Steve and didn’t want to ruin their friendship or any potential relationship by moving too fast or too slow. Also also, Steve’s health wasn’t great. Bucky could hurt him, so easily, without ever meaning to.

That didn’t make him less important. It didn’t stop him from being what was constantly on Bucky’s mind. It didn’t change the fear that Bucky had felt while watching Steve struggle to breathe the night before, or the odd and immediate sense of rightness that being wrapped around him had provided. It didn’t change the lurch and bound in Bucky’s chest every time he looked at him, or how breathless he got when Steve smiled.

It didn’t change the fact that Bucky could see how well they fit each other, how their angles matched and worked together. They could be happy together for a long, long time. Steve was everything that Bucky had ever wanted, and some things Bucky hadn’t known he wanted. He balanced him out.

Wasn’t that what a soulmate did?

“It’s been two weeks,” he replied when he felt Natasha’s eyes still on him. “I know that. I just… feel right with him. And that’s not something I feel all the time.”

“Hm. Better get a move on before Tony does, then.” She arched her eyebrows. “Or. You know. Actually have a conversation with Tony instead of just glaring at him.”

Bucky shook his head, standing as Thor’s opponent hit the mat. Honestly, the match should have been over earlier. Thor had been playing with his food again, a concept supported when Thor bounded over the ropes and clapped Bucky on the shoulder, nearly vibrating with energy. Bucky laughed at him and climbed into the ring, settling his weight on his feet and sizing up his opponent.

He was a good size, had solid muscles. Didn’t seem to be favoring either leg yet. Moved like he was right-handed. No tattoos. Didn’t seem bothered by Bucky.

Bucky let his eyes wander as the announcer began the countdown and glanced at Natasha and Thor, who were leaned together, Thor grinning as Nat said something in his ear. He glanced away then, allowing himself a brief look at the group in the stands.

Clint was focused on the fight. His hearing aids were out as they usually were when he was in a place like this, and he was playing with them. Tony was talking, making movements with his fingers that suggested he was explaining Bucky’s chances. Steve, however, was watching Bucky, and gave him a smile that lit up the whole damn room as their eyes met and made a _turn around_ motion with his fingers.

Bucky couldn’t help the breathless catch in his throat or the ear-to-ear smile that broke across his face. He turned back around, focusing on his opponent, who looked vaguely unnerved by the fact that Bucky was now grinning like an idiot in the middle of the ring.

Unfortunately, Bucky didn’t have time to replay Steve’s smile or that adorable finger-gesture.

The whistle blew and he was focused, letting the crowd fade away again as he zeroed in on his opponent. This, honestly, was nothing compared to what Bucky had grown up with. There were no below-the-belt shots, no kicking, no foul play allowed. In a way, that restricted him. He couldn’t use his whole body like he would like (something that, funnily, Nat also complained about). This also meant, however, that his competition was deeply limited as well.

Daniel had once called it ‘hunting mode,’ the concept that suddenly all that mattered was the predator and the prey. And, like any good predator, Bucky knew which side of the food chain he was on. He advanced, parrying and ducking the throws of his opponent, and caught his jaw in an uppercut before sending another blow crashing against his cheekbone.

One punch landed on Bucky himself, maybe two. It didn’t matter. He was herding his opponent with every step, crowding him, cornering him, and at that point, it was over.

 _Only the weak let themselves get cornered and trapped,_ Bucky’s father had told them once as Bucky patched up a scuff on Eli’s cheek.

The whistle broke Bucky’s concentration, bringing with it the rest of the world, and he looked around quickly. His opponent was sitting on the floor, one glove torn off to press to his bloody face, and Bucky let the referee move him back, holding his hands up.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he agreed, tugging off his gloves. He wondered, perhaps belatedly, if he’d gone too far or used too much force once he’d had his rival in the corner. He had a lot of pent-up anger and stress with the whole Tony situation… maybe he’d let too much of it out.

He swung himself back over the ropes and returned to sit by Nat and Thor, taking the towel she offered him.

“How bad was that?” He muttered to Nat, who inclined her head.

“Maybe an eight on the aggression scale? You didn’t knock any teeth out this time.”

“Did I scare Steve?” He didn’t dare look at the crowd, this possibility suddenly and sickeningly plausible. Soft, beautiful, delicate, kind Steve who thought that _his_ temper was a problem and had just watched Bucky beat the living shit out of another guy.

She snorted. “I’m pretty sure you hooked the little idiot for life. He was pissed when you got hit, but all the rest of the time…” she shook her head and Bucky glanced up surreptitiously to check Steve’s expression.

Steve was looking at him in fascination, talking animatedly with Clint and Tony. He looked excited, interested. No sign of repulsion or uncertainty. Bucky relaxed, scrubbing the sweat off his skin, and cheered as Natasha stood to finish out the match.


	3. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has class, drone battles ensue, and he spends more time with everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then here's the new chapter!  
> Again- sorry about the deletion, y'all! Things got mixed up for a while there. We're just going to post what we have on this fic. I say it a lot for my artwork- "progress, not perfection." This definitely isn't perfect, but it's silly and fluffy and a little fun, so we decided to put it back up. I hope you guys enjoy it, even if it's not the best form.

“It was like art,” Steve told Wanda as they worked on their projects. He sighed, replaying in his mind how Bucky had moved- like a panther or a tiger, some big beautiful sleek cat, all deadly intent and muscles. “I’ve never really watched fighting like that.”

“Okay, but didn’t you just say he broke the other guy’s nose?” Wanda raised an eyebrow at him, pausing blending her charcoal to do so.

“Yes.” Steve frowned at the paper and erased a line. “It was a very interesting technique.”

“Well, draw it.” She shrugged, tossing long locks carelessly over her shoulder as she studied her work before leaning down to work on it again. “The motions, the poses. Put it down and _make_ it art.”

“That’s my plan.” He gestured to the lines he was working with. “I’m going for a more abstract thing.” Because he didn’t want Bucky to see it and freak out, for Bucky to look at the pictures Steve drew of him and _know._

Steve hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Bucky since the moment the other boy had moved in. His smile, his laugh, his piercings and hair, his tattoos, his eyes… Steve would start drawing a flower and it would morph into Bucky’s smile, an apple and it would turn into Bucky’s eye, a tree and suddenly there was Bucky’s tattooed arm.

He had drawn Bucky once on purpose and had torn it up, terrified of just exactly how obvious it was that it was no mere portrait. Every line, every piece of shading and highlight, screamed out from the page how much he wanted Bucky. He may as well have written it out, it was that obvious of a love letter.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how Bucky had held him against his chest as he tried to help him breathe, how perfect and comfortable and right it had felt enfolded back against him. How he’d seemed to have been perfectly shaped to fit in the angles and grooves of Bucky’s body, how the steadiness of Bucky’s heartbeat against Steve’s back was there to fill in the gaps of Steve’s fickle and arrhythmic heart. How natural Bucky had been at helping him through it. The look of true fear he’d had when he’d realized what was actually happening.

Wanda leaned over to study it and made a noise of approval. “That’s actually really good,” she praised. “Abstract but it has flow, I like it. You going to give it to him after?”

Steve’s phone chirped in his pocket, then began erupting, and he looked down at it with a frown, pulling it from his pocket.

_**BB:** Steve, you should 10/10 skip your next class and come hang out with us._

_**TO:** We r flying kites in the park._

_**TS:** I spiced up the game a little bit. You should come!_

_**NR:** By ‘spiced up the game’ he means that it’s flying robot wars_

_**BB:** Guys, he’s in class, stop blowing up his phone. And mine._

_**NR:** Oh, blow me._

_**BB:** Jesus Christ._

_**TS:** If that’s anatomically possible, you have some explaining to do._

_**TO:** Steve come with us _

Steve burst out laughing. “They’re insane,” he informed Wanda. “And no, I won’t be giving it to him. I don’t think he needs to know I draw him all the freaking time.” He considered, chewing his lower lip, then,

_**SR:** By flying robot wars are we destroying Tony’s drones or do you all have remote-controlled helicopters?_

“Who cares? You’re an art major, it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Wanda dismissed. “I draw my roommate all the time. Of course, I draw my crush, too, but it doesn’t stand out because I draw everyone.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, but I _only_ draw him. I mean our friends too as a group, but mostly just him or random people. It’s different- I do still life.” He hesitated. “Are you putting in for that art showing at the end of the month?” He glanced down as his phone buzzed erratically.

_**NR:** My idiot roommate bought SIX drones for the sole purpose of fighting them._

_**TO:** They r pretty much kites_

Steve laughed.

_**SR:** I’m always for a good drone fight. Tony, are you going to cry if we kill them all and waste all that money?_ Drones were like… five hundred each right?

_**TS:** Nah. Gives me a challenge._

_**BB:** Cool. I’ll grab you from your class, Steve._

Wanda waited until Steve had put his phone away to reply to his question. “I don’t know,” she admitted, casting a critical eye over her charcoal piece. “I’m not liking almost anything I’ve been making lately. We’ll see if I make something good in time.”

“I think your stuff is great,” Steve disagreed. “Look at the way you shade, the lines you do. They’re fantastic. You’re the best charcoal artist here, you should put something in.” He examined her drawing. “Add some cross-hatching and it’ll be great.”

“You and your cross-hatching,” she murmured, smiling slightly as she set out to work again. “Have you ever dated a guy, Steve?”

He looked up at her, then back at his sketch. “No,” he admitted. “I haven’t ever really liked someone like that before.”

“My advice, not that you asked for it,” she noted, and he smiled slightly as he noticed her crosshatching, “Is to fool around with someone less important first. You don’t want to mess up a friendship with your roommate over bicuriosity, realize it’s not actually what you thought, and be shit out of luck.”

That wasn’t a terrible idea, he had to admit to himself. He wasn’t exactly sure what all being with another man entailed, but he understood her point. “It’s not quite as easy as just pointing and asking, though. And what if he finds out and gets freaked out?”

“So be subtle.” She rolled her eyes. “And be honest. Tell him you’re experimenting, and you chose someone who wouldn’t make a big deal of it. Tell him you’re trying to figure out what you want and like. If he’s worth anything, he’ll get that.”

Steve laughed. “How the hell would that conversation even _start?_ Hey Bucky, I really like you but I’m nervous I don’t really like guys so I’m going to find some random dude to try out instead?” He was already feeling hot and uncomfortable just thinking about it. How would that even go?

“Just don’t tell him unless he finds out.” She glanced at him and smiled a little. “It’s going to be okay, Steve. Experimenting is what college is for.”

He shook his head. “Maybe,” he allowed. It made sense, it made plenty of sense in theory, but he wasn’t sure about it in practice. He’d never flirted. He had no idea how to even ask someone to do something like that.

There was a sudden flurry of activity around them as the students caught sight of the clock and began packing things away. Wanda followed suit, glancing at the clock, then down at the door, and made an appreciative noise. “He is nice to look at, isn’t he? We should get him to be a nude model sometime. All those angles and muscles and ink and that hair would be _gorgeous_ to sketch out.”

Oh sweet god. Steve felt his face burn. “Absolutely not,” he mumbled. “And of course he’s nice to look at, why do you think I draw him all the time?” He turned to look and found Bucky leaning against one of the walls, allowing a couple of the other students to examine his tattoo with critical and appraising eyes. His piercings were back in today, his untattooed hand holding his jacket over his shoulder, and he was grinning down at one of the art girls who was making a rapid sketch of the tattoo in her sketchbook.

Steve’s heart gave a squeeze and he laughed a little, unable to take his eyes off him. “Do you see what I mean? Jesus, Wanda. What the hell am I supposed to do when he looks like that?”

“Him?” Wanda offered with a grin, raising her eyebrows at Steve, who stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky’s voice interjected, and he was edging closer to them now. “I’m sorry, I’m just here for him. Fisher McInnis at Black Sword, if you want similar ink. I can’t stay, really-“ he managed to get through the small cluster and caught Steve’s shoulder, slinging his arm around his shoulders as he was wont to do. “The art students are going to eat me. Save me,” he muttered in Steve’s ear with a hitch of laughter.

Steve laughed a little and shook his head at him, trying to push down the warmth that always accompanied anytime Bucky touched him. “They think you’re a good model,” he informed him. “And they may want to take your arm and make copies. I can’t blame them, I draw it a lot. It’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, but your drawings are better than theirs,” Bucky said matter-of-factly, and Wanda stifled a giggle into her elbow by disguising it as a sneeze. Bucky glanced up at her, away from Steve, and she smiled at him.

“Hi, there. Wanda Lensherr. Steve’s not wrong, you know. You should model for us. It would be good.” She pulled her portfolio onto her shoulder and Bucky grimaced.

“Nah, I’d make your work come out all ugly.”

Steve frowned up at him. “Do you even know what you look like?” He asked incredulously. “You actually _should_ model for us, they’d love to have more people with tattoos.” _But not nude model,_ he thought at Wanda. He would never be able to draw that steadily or well. “Wanda’s very talented. You should see some of her things.”

“I’d love to, sometime.” He offered her a smile and picked up Steve’s portfolio bag. “But tragically, not now. Come on, we gotta head to the park before they start without us.”

“Oh. Right.” Steve grinned. _Drone battle._ They made their way out of the classroom, compressing together for a moment to avoid the clusters of people. “How the hell does Tony have this much disposable income?”

“Do you know Tony’s last name?” Bucky glanced down at him as they walked down the hall.

Steve frowned. “No. He’s just S in the group chat.” He’d never thought to ask, really.

“His name is Tony Stark. His dad is _the_ Howard Stark. Like of Stark Industries.” Bucky raised his eyebrows at Steve.

Steve stared up at him, the points connecting. “Jesus. He’s _Antony Stark?_ Of Stark Industries? Why is he just in a regular house in a regular school? Why’s he not in MIT or Harvard or something?”

“He _finished_ MIT,” Bucky said darkly. “At _seventeen.”_

“God.” Steve shook his head. “And he’s what, just having fun now?”

“That’s exactly what he’s doing. He said he didn’t feel like he got a college experience, so he picked one at random and is taking a luxury degree just to party and experiment.” Bucky laughed. “He literally threw a dart and that’s why he’s here.”

“That’s completely insane.” Steve shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on with that. That’s insane.”

“Well, he’s a genius, but he’s also twenty.” Bucky shrugged. “He wants to _be_ twenty and normal, just for a bit. It’s not such a stretch, it’s why I’m in school before I enlist.”

Steve inclined his head. If you were smart enough to graduate from a school like that as a teenager, it made sense that you’d want to be normal for a while, rather than being a genius somewhere. Then he registered the end of Bucky’s statement. “You’re planning on actually enlisting?” He looked up at him. “I thought you weren’t, that’s just what your dad wanted you to do.”

“I don’t know.” He sighed, looking tired suddenly as he rubbed the back of his neck. “He called me and reamed me out about it this morning, reminded me that I’m only here on his military benefits. Our original deal was that I’d enlist in the Marines, but only if I got to go to school first. I’d kind of just been ignoring my end of the bargain.”

The thought of Bucky Barnes as a Marine was shockingly upsetting.

They would shave his head, remove his piercings, break him down and build him back up as a soldier. The concept was somewhat nauseating, to think of the bright, vivid, tactile man beside him reduced to a blank state. 

He wouldn’t even be Bucky anymore. Steve remembered his father, remembered the things he’d quoted, the strong but serious man he had been. The military was serious business and it cranked out serious people more often than not, people who fit into the boxes that the military needed. Not people like Bucky.

“Steve. Hey.” Bucky stopped, catching his arm. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Steve pulled his sweater over his hands, trying to stay calm, but the idea of Marine-Bucky stayed in his mind like a splinter. “He shouldn’t ream you out,” he said after a moment, a little too sharply. “You’re trying to go to school. And… I don’t know, you’re pretty strong, but I don’t know if I see military.” He tried to smile, fighting down the anger, and a small v of concern touched between Bucky’s eyebrows. He flattened a hand against Steve’s chest for a moment, moving them both back against the wall and out of the current of students.

“Hey. Are you breathing okay?” Bucky ducked his head slightly to meet Steve’s eyes, searching them, leaving his hand on Steve’s body. “You’re okay, I’ve got you. What do you need?”

_If you go away to the army, you won’t be able to ask me that anymore._ Steve took in a deep breath, finding that surprisingly, it did rather feel a little harder to breathe. He didn’t think it was asthma, though; just the horror of the idea of someone like Bucky being changed so drastically. “I’m okay,” he agreed, resting a hand on Bucky’s arm. “I’m not having an attack, my heart’s acting up.” He grinned a little, trying for humor. “Most of me doesn’t work entirely right.” Actually, his heart _was_ a little speedy at the moment- both because of the idea of Bucky leaving for so long and coming back foriegn and strange, and because Bucky was touching him and looking at him that way. His heart always sped when Bucky touched him.

Of course, he did actually have a heart murmur, but it was highly unlikely that without medical knowledge and a stethoscope Bucky would notice.

“I’m fine though,” he assured Bucky. “Totally cool. I’d let you know if I wasn’t. I promised.”

“Okay.” Bucky moved his hand up to rest around the back of Steve’s neck and he searched his face for a long moment, then pushed his head aside gently. “Punk. Worrying me over nothing...” He started walking again, shaking his head. “Making us late to flying robot wars, I ask you…”

“My faulty mitral valve apologizes,” Steve said with a little grin, hoping that Bucky hadn’t see just how unsteady he’d felt after that brief and entirely unexpected contact. “I’m certain that Tony won’t have let them start without us. It’s too grand a master plan to allow anyone to be missing.” He paused. “Wait, where’s Clint?” He scrolled through the chat and found no comment from the blonde, which was weird. A drone-fight sounded like exactly the kind of insanity he’d go for.

“He’s going to be very upset that he missed this if he’s still testing.” Bucky laughed, tilting his head back slightly as a breeze picked up across the sidewalk they were walking down. Steve tried to ignore just how nice it looked and kept his fingers from twitching in a pantomime of drawing a line. “He’s at the doctor for his hearing aids right now- the left one broke and they won’t do anything until he gets retested, so he’s been there for a bit now waiting.”

“You’re into sign language and deaf education,” Steve remembered. “So having a deaf friend is useful, you can ask about their experiences.”

“Yeah.” Bucky smiled. “We’re in ASL club together, he helps me practice.” Bucky gestured and focused on the group as they came around a building, looking down at the large white plastic drones on the ground. 

“So this is normal for you guys?” Steve asked as he grinned at them, looking around at the others.

Nat was crouched and spray painting one of the drones with practiced sweeps of her hand, Thor was turning his over and examining it. Tony grinned back at Steve. “Yeah, pretty much. We fight them, tear them all to hell, and then I repair and make alterations and we try again later. If you have any requests for yours for next time, you can let me know after.”

“My request is to leave my paint job alone,” Natasha informed him.

Tony looked up at the sky sufferingly. “There was _damage_ and I had to replace all the shells, Nat. We’ve been over this.”

Bucky crouched beside her, examining the geometrical line work on the drone critically. “Add some red there,” he suggested, picking up a spray can of his own and giving it a quick and expert shake. He glanced back up at Steve with a smile. “It’s not just vanity. When they’re up in the air, it can be easy to get confused about which one you are. If you want to give yours a stripe or design, it helps out.”

“That makes sense.” He settled next to the one Tony indicated and considered, examining the labels on the spray cans. He was good with blues and browns and purples, but most everything else faded into a muddy orange-gray, so he’d use the colors he knew.

He got to work, trying to make his design different from the others. “Nat, how’s work?” He asked as he coated one side of it.

“I get to tackle people all day, it’s the dream.” She didn’t look up from her work, but she was smiling. It looked like it was black and (from Bucky’s statement) red, the ‘red’ color making up a geometrical design in the underside.

“This is going to be glorious,” Thor said, chuckling sinisterly as he examined his own drone, which had streaks of color across it that Steve couldn’t quite identify. “You’re all going down.”

“I don’t know about that,” Steve protested. “What about beginner’s luck? That’s a thing, it helps.”

“It helps the strong, my little friend.” Thor grinned at him. “And when it comes to drone-fights, I will be the strongest.”

“Your muscles don’t help you with _drone-fighting,”_ Steve scoffed, wishing he had a paintbrush so he could actually design his drone properly. “It’s all about reflexes and the manipulation of the controls.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Thor practically cackled, and Natasha sprayed his leg with paint as punishment- presumably for just getting on her nerves.

* * *

The drone fight was, in fact, as glorious as Thor had claimed. Tony’s mention of ‘if you have requests’ made more sense now, as each drone seemed to be individualized. Natasha’s could fly at odd angles and speeds the others couldn’t. Bucky’s could _grab_ other drones and he used that fact to dive bomb with them. Tony’s drone had spinning blades on it, which he used to hack at everyone else’s. Thor’s seemed to cause electrical issues when touched by the other drones. Steve’s drone was less decked out, as he was new, but he discovered quickly that it had the ability to let out a blindingly bright flash that forced everyone else to look away, momentarily seceding their control.

In the end, it was Nat who won, and Tony gathered up the now-broken drones, tossing them cheerfully into his duffel bag. He headed off, looking weirdly pleased at the concept of fixing the damage, and they looked around in time to see Clint running toward them.

“I hate myself,” he groaned as he stopped, coming to a halt beside Nat. “Look at this. Plastic on the ground, bits and pieces of metal, _burn marks._ I missed the whole thing, didn’t I?” He looked mournfully at Nat. “The whole thing.”

“We’ll do it again,” Steve offered, and he sighed.

“I missed it.” Clint looked between them. “So who won?” He demanded, slinging an arm over Nat’s shoulders.

“Natasha,” Thor said tragically, but he was already pulling his phone out to take a picture of the wreckage on the ground and text it to someone. 

“How did your appointment go?” Steve inquired.

Clint laughed. “Shocking- I’m deaf! Eighty-eight percent hearing loss in the right ear, seventy-seven percent in the left. It’s _almost_ like it’s been that way since I was a kid but you know.” He snorted. “They couldn’t get me a new aid right now, they ordered it, so don’t stand on my right for a bit.” Steve noticed how he’d angled himself, his left side toward them. Interesting- he hadn’t really ever had contact with anyone with a hearing issue before. 

“You know Tony’s been itching to make you one,” Natasha told him in amusement, fingers flashing the signs for the words as she spoke nearly reflexively. “He’s probably sulking that you didn’t ask.”

Clint considered. “Do you think he could make them with like, secret dart compartments for HvZ?” He grinned at her. “Actually, I didn’t know Tony wanted to make me some. I’ll talk to him, his are better than whatever my insurance can afford. These are problem children.” He tapped the left one.

To Nat’s credit, she considered it. “Nah, darts are too big to fit into your ear and then it would be useless the rest of the year. I mean, he probably could, though.”

“Yeah, remember the flying carpet incident?” Bucky muttered, shaking his head as he picked up pieces of drone from the ground.

Steve looked between them with a laugh as Clint picked up his phone, fingers flying across the screen. “So Tony’s just a mad scientist stuck here with us? What was the _flying carpet incident?”_

“He strapped a small army of drones together, put a platform on top, and covered it with a blanket.” Thor started laughing, tuning in from texting. Natasha nodded.

“That’s the basis of it. Honestly though— they could carry him. That was the amazing thing. The carpet supported his weight despite drones barely supporting their _own_ weight. The house was covered in equations and calculations, it was a nightmare.”

“He did it,” Bucky informed Steve, “Because he was tired of walking to class and bumping into other people. So he figured out how to just soar above them. Like a maniac.”

“The university served him a cease and desist letter,” Clint said fondly. “The man is in fact a mad scientist and he is amazing. We think up stupid shit to do and Tony finds a way to make it work.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head. “I have in fact noticed that he’s crazy. But good crazy, mostly.” They started walking and Thor peeled off toward his dorms, waving goodbye to them cheerfully. “But then, you are all kind of crazy too, so it works.”

“Nah,” Bucky dismissed. “That’s just Clint rubbing off on us.”

Clint slung an arm over Nat’s shoulders, and Steve noted that he actually moved so she was on his good side. “I am indeed the crazy one. Y’all were normal, nice, cute people until I showed up and showed you how much fun life can be. Speaking of, the mods okayed my sock cannon idea but said that we can’t have explosives of any level so the dart grenades Tony was working on are a no-go.”

“Really.” Nat rolled her eyes. “They didn’t approve that.”

He sighed in a put-upon way. “No. They didn’t, I’m pretty distressed about it.” His phone buzzed and he grinned. “Fuck yeah. Alright, be good children, Stark’s going to look at my ears and see what he can do. Love that dude.” He squeezed Nat into his side, gave Steve a high-five, and punched Bucky’s arm, then ran off in the direction of Tony and Nat’s house with a whoop.

Steve watched him go. “That guy is going to get himself killed doing some really dumb prank one day, isn’t he?” he asked clinically, grinning.

“Ten out of ten,” Bucky agreed, then paused as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, studying it for a minute, then put it away again. “I’ll be right back if you guys wanna wait a sec. I just gotta-“ he gestured vaguely toward one of the buildings across the street. He handed Steve’s portfolio back to him.

“I can wait here,” Nat agreed, settling to sit beneath the bell tower.

“Go ahead, we can hang out.” He sat across from Nat and Bucky jogged off. Steve considered. He needed to practice shading and shape, and he hadn’t often had the opportunity to draw someone as pretty as Natasha. “Nat, do you mind if I draw you? Mostly your hair. I’m not good with long hair. It’s red, right?” He of course couldn’t see the color, but he figured it was black or red, from the shade.

“Dark red,” she confirmed, tucking one foot up under her. “Go ahead, I don’t mind. Easier with my clothes on than off.” She shrugged cheerfully.

He laughed and pulled out his sketchbook, starting the basic linework he needed. “You don’t need to sit in any specific way, I’m just working with shapes. You’ve been a nude model? I’ve drawn a few nudes. It’s really awkward at first, usually, for everyone, but once everybody starts drawing it’s actually really interesting.”

“Yeah, I did it for spring semester last year, before I got the job I do now.” She watched the people walk around them, at-ease and unbothered by his drawing. “I’ve got a fairly unique body type- I have curves and defined muscles, so it was something different for them to work with. I don’t mind it. It’s just skin. It’s just people looking at it with my given permission.” She shrugged.

Steve smiled, inclining his head. “You’ve got a really nice shape,” he agreed. “And you’re very pretty, so you’d be great for that.” he paused, feeling his face burn as he realized how that had sounded. “I’m sorry, I’m not being weird. That’s- from an artist perspective. And a person perspective, obviously. You’re pretty.” Jesus. This is why he drew instead of writing things. He busied himself with his drawing and could _feel_ her grinning at him.

“See, that was the other fun thing. I’m not awkward about it at all but it was so funny to watch the artists try to make small talk afterwards. Let me help out-- do you have any siblings, Steve?”

He liked Nat, he decided firmly as he smiled up at her. They hadn’t had a lot of contact until now, but she was an interesting person, and a good one. “I don’t, no. My parents wanted more, but with all my issues and my dad being gone overseas so much and my mom being a nurse, they couldn’t handle more than me.” He’d always felt badly about that; that they could have had more children. “It would have been cool to have a bunch of brothers and sisters, though. I was always jealous of the kids who had more. Do you?”

“A sister. She’s back home.” She waved a hand. “We aren’t especially close. You never know with siblings, though. You could be like me, where they’re kind of just there, like Bucky is with two of them, where you love them insanely, or like with Bucky’s other brother, where you would rather just step into traffic and deal with the ER bills than talk to them.”

Steve let out a surprised laugh at the description. “Yeah, we’ve talked about his siblings before. It’s the younger brother and the sister he’s close with, right?” He gave her a smile and eyed the way her hair fell, adjusting something on his drawing. “You weren’t close with your sister when you were young either? I always thought it would be cool to have someone like that, a best friend you lived with.”

“Yelena is adoptive,” she explained, “And very competitive. I am too, so it meant we butted heads a lot. I ended up coming to America and housing with Clint when I was sixteen, so things have been a little easier in that department just because we never see each other anymore.”

“Oh, right. I forgot Bucky mentioned you lived with Clint when you guys were younger.” He blinked at her, then laughed. “Was he just as crazy then, or has he only gotten worse? A dart grenade. I ask you. There’s no way that wouldn’t end with someone’s eye getting poked out.”

“He wouldn’t actually do it.” She laughed. “He just likes to see how far we let him go. He cares about people too much to hurt them.”

Their conversation wandered elsewhere then, to Steve’s classes (he loved his studio classes and hated art history) and Natasha’s (she was taking three of her five classes online and was balancing them way better than Steve would have). Then they moved on to the dorms and how much Natasha had hated her previous roommate, a sorority girl who had passive-aggressively escalated a situation until there had been an ‘incident’ and Nat had been permitted a single room. They had just moved on to boxing when Bucky returned.

“Yeah, that’s how Bucky and I met Thor,” she agreed, then raised her hand to wave. Steve turned from her to see Bucky returning, waving to an oncoming driver with a laugh as he jogged across the street. 

“Hey,” Bucky greeted them, and Natasha eyed him, then,

“James, I like your roommate.”

“You already liked my roommate,” he informed her, settling himself to sit beside Steve, who grinned at him. “He’s a good guy, why would you not?”

“You’re both idiots.” Steve rolled his eyes and went back to his sketch, then hesitated. “I know it’s really dumb and it’s going to be boring,” he informed them, “But there’s free cookies and probably low-quality punch or something stupid. Maybe someone will even spike it. I’ve got an art thing like at the end of the month.”

“That’s cool!” Bucky leaned forward curiously. “Did you have to earn a place in? What day? Is it like a gallery where people just look at your stuff, or we watch you work, or what?”

“I’d shoot myself if you were just watching me work,” Steve said, alarmed at the idea. It had taken him a while to even get comfortable having friends watch him, he couldn’t imagine drawing in front of strangers. “No, it’s like a gallery thing. Everyone’s putting stuff in, it’s not just me. You don’t have to come if you guys have stuff. It’s going to be boring,” he said again, warningly. “It’s just canvases and sketches and things and some sculpture.”

“We’ll come,” Nat agreed, watching him with a smile. “That’s what friends are for, idiot. I’ll let the rest of the guys know.” She stood, stretching. “I’m going to go see how Clint’s holding up with Tony. The fact that neither has texted an SOS is way more concerning than if they had.”

“Yeah, there’s a reason I’m not living with either of them.” Bucky grinned, his shoulder bumping Steve’s as he looked up at her. She laughed and headed away. “We’ll definitely come,” Bucky agreed seriously, warmly, as he focused back on Steve. “It’ll be cool to see your finished projects, I’ve only ever seen your sketchbook.”

“Thanks.” Steve gave a little laugh, looking back at him. Even sitting, there was a height difference- Bucky’s height was mostly in his legs, but he had a long torso, too. Bucky really did have the prettiest eyes, Steve thought as he focused on him, and a genuinely fascinating nose- it looked like it had been broken once or twice, but it added character, and he had surprisingly full lips that people didn’t realize was so pretty because he was always laughing or grinning. He was always gorgeous, but this close, Steve could pick out all the pieces that made him truly beautiful, all the little tiny scars and lines that came together to make someone so incredible.

Bucky’s smile faded slightly as he searched Steve’s face, his eyes tracing Steve’s features so intensely that it almost felt like he was touching them. They’d gotten closer somehow, Steve realized distantly, but then there was a car blaring its horn as it drove past them, and the moment was broken, Bucky looking around in surprise and confusion.

Steve moved up on his knees, flipping them off and making as if to stand. Assholes. They were all such assholes. The car disappeared around the corner and he grumbled, sitting back down. “Just ignore stupid people,” he said after a moment, looking at Bucky and trying to calm down. There was no point in being angry, no point in going after them. “How was your whatever?”

“Uh, fine,” Bucky said, glancing away from the car and clearing his throat. “It was fine, I just had to help a friend really quickly.”

Steve watched him. _They’re just stupid people, Buck._ It made his blood boil that anyone would put that unsure look on Bucky Barnes’ face. He nodded a little. “You’re always helping friends. We’re lucky to have you. What do you want to do for the rest of the night? Anything exciting?”

“Nah, nothing planned anyway.” He got up and held out a hand to help Steve up. “Just homework. There’s gonna be an A Capella concert in the green beneath our dorm though, so we’ll want to open the window or leave the premises depending on skill level.”

Steve laughed, the tension dissipating as he took Bucky’s hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Acapella choirs are very much hit or miss,” he agreed, held out the sketchbook. “I drew Nat. I’m trying to work with hair- I haven’t drawn a lot of women.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, eyebrows raising as he took it. “I would totally get that that’s Nat. I have a lot of girl friends, I can have them come over and let you draw them, if you want.”

Steve grinned up at him. “I’m sure you have plenty of female friends who would be more than happy to come over,” he agreed, pushing at his arm. “You saw what all the art girls did when you walked in. It’s the tattoo and the piercings and the hair.”

And the eyes. And the hands, and the height, and the muscles, and the smile. Jesus. What _wasn’t_ gorgeous about him?

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Hardly,” he scoffed. “They aren’t interested in me like that. Anyways. They’d model if I asked. Do you need it for your gallery thing at the end of the month?”

“No, I’ve got to choose and turn those in too soon, I wouldn’t be happy with it by then.” Steve shook his head. How Bucky didn’t understand what he looked like or the effect he had on people would never fail to shock Steve. He paused, something unrelated occurring to him. “Wait, HvZ is that last week. We’ve got stuff we’re doing, I completely forgot.”

“Yeah,” he agreed cheerfully. “You’re going to love it. Don’t worry- the game pauses indoors, so your gallery won’t be ambushed.” He grinned.

“No, but you guys all are going to be playing the game,” Steve protested. “You’d have to stop to come see. It’s cool, they’re just dusty old drawings, it’s really not a big deal. It’s not the last one, you can come later. It’s the third night of the game, you’ll miss some of it.”

“I don’t give a solitary shit,” Bucky said easily. “I’m going to go to your gallery. Exhibit. Thing.”

Steve’s heart gave a little squeeze and he smiled. “Okay,” he said, trying to hide how happy that made him. “Whatever you want. But if you get ambushed and become a zombie I don’t want to hear it.”

“Scout’s honor,” he promised, smiling down at him, expression soft and ridiculously fond in a way that had Steve tripping over his own feet. “No complaints here.” 

“Okay.” Steve laughed, trying frantically to regain control of his heart rate and the situation. “Nat’s cool. She offered to help teach me how to box.”

“ _I_ offered to teach you how to box.” Bucky stared down at him, pretending to be offended. “Why does she get to?”

Steve laughed. “I didn’t say that I’d rather have her. I said that she also offered. Which is nice. You promised me you’d teach me boxing this weekend, don’t think I forgot.” Steve smiled up at the sky, considering. “I’ll wear extra padding if it makes you feel better.”

“I’m not going to hit you, you’re going to hit me,” Bucky disagreed, rolling his eyes. “And the punching bag. And your inhaler will be on you at all times.” 

“Lookin’ good, Barnes!” A guy called from across the street with a laugh, and Bucky’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t stop walking.

“We’ll practice Saturday,” he said, as if there hadn’t been an interruption.

Steve studied him. Bucky usually took compliments in stride, or dismissed them, scoffing. This particular reaction was one that Steve hadn’t seen. He glanced back to identify who had spoken, frowning. He found a man with brown hair there, dark eyes on Bucky, grinning no less widely for the fact that Bucky hadn’t responded to him. “Okay,” Steve agreed absently. “Saturday, sounds good. Then I’ll be able to punch even harder.”

Bucky snorted. “Uh-huh. Sure. It’s more about it being a good workout and you being able to defend yourself when you inevitably yell at someone enough to have them haul off on you.”

Steve snorted, eyeing the other boy, then shook himself and focused back on Bucky, memorizing the features of the cat-caller. “I haven’t gotten in any fights yet this semester. My mother is so proud, I think she’s going to buy me a car.” He laughed. “But okay. You realize I’ve been in plenty of fights and haven’t died yet though, right? I don’t usually _win.”_

“Uh-huh,” he said again, side-eyeing him. “Look. It’s not even necessarily about that- although it is about that- it’s that there’s a time and a place for fights, Stevie. And that time and place is under supervision with medical help nearby. Someone hits you wrong in a fight and you don’t have any help, your brain could get scrambled.” He poked Steve’s temple. “Not to mention assault charges, which are definitely a thing. Fighting’s good. It’s a workout, it releases endorphins, gives you an outlet for rage both physical and mental, and I maintain that there’s a caveman part of us that needs it. But in the _right place.”_ He poked Steve’s temple again.

Steve smiled up at him. “I’ve been doing better. I was worse when I was younger.” He was right, that assault charges were a thing. As a teenager, that wasn’t really an issue, but he was a full-grown adult now and could be tried as one. Granted, he couldn’t imagine anyone getting beat up by _Steve Rogers_ and was willing to go to trial with Steve’s scrawny, asthmatic ass on record as having beat him… But it _could_ technically happen.

“I know.” Bucky’s lips raised into a smile in return. “I half-thought you’d go yelling at that car earlier. Look at you, learning impulse control.”

“I thought about it,” Steve grumbled, looking away. “And the one who bothered you after. But I'm _learning._ It’s progress. And they were going too fast and were across the street, respectively.”

“Don’t mess with Brock.” Bucky was frowning down at him immediately, eyebrows pulling together. “He’d- no. He’s not a great guy, Steve.”

Steve frowned back at him. “He’s not a great guy how?”

Bucky looked away as he opened the door to their dorm, looking inside the building rather than down at Steve as usual. “He’s just an asshole. You’ll see him again soon enough, he plays for Hydra in HvZ. I’m sure he does it just to fuck with me, too,” he muttered, half under his breath.

Steve watched him, then bumped into him gently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you want us to launch someone at him? Clint was talking about a human trebuchet with Tony at the boxing match.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely not going to be a thing.” Bucky laughed as they climbed the stairs. “We don’t actually _throw_ people. More of Clint’s dreams of chaos. Just stay away from Rumlow, it’s better for everyone. Now, come on-- show me your design for your glass project.”

* * *

“Hey, Steve.” Steve glanced up from his painting, spattered with acrylic and feeling intensely frustrated. Bucky was out to ‘meet a friend,’ which was mildly funny as Steve hadn’t been fully sure that Bucky Barnes _had_ other friends. He wasn’t sure if it was a platonic friend or not, and that had him thinking in circles, trying desperately to find a way to ask but knowing it wasn’t his business. Bucky had yet to bring any girls to their room, but he realized grimly that maybe Bucky just met them somewhere. He was good enough not to want Steve to have to deal with more company without notice.

He’d decided to try practicing painting to take up the time and attention instead, which had been a terrible decision, as he was now utterly pissed at the paint’s inability to follow what he wanted it to do.

It was Tony in his doorway, which did reduce some of the anger somewhat, replacing it with surprise. The genius rarely came to any of the others’ dorm rooms, considering that he had a house with far more privacy and food. Most of the time, the group just came to him. He flashed Steve a grin, stepping inside and tilting his head to look down at the painting. 

“That’s not bad,” he praised. “I like the water.”

“Yeah?” Steve sighed. “Thanks. Does this look green? Or pink?” He pointed to a section. “I don’t even know. The shades are all jumbled together and I’m feeling like trashing the whole thing.”

“It’s green,” Tony confirmed, studying him for a moment. “Is that why you work in ink most of the time?”

Steve nodded. “Protan color-blindness. I can’t see greens or reds or pinks or a bunch of others. I get blues and some purples though.” He shrugged. “I like doing black and grey. It’s my sadistic teacher who says I have to use the whole color palette.” He tossed his brush in the cup and looked up at Tony. “What’s going on? Anything interesting?”

“Not especially. I finished your drone update and thought I’d come by to see if you need any other adjustments.” He sat on Bucky’s bed, stretching his legs out, and Steve glanced around, distracted from his reply when his phone beeped across the room. He checked his watch and confirmed-- it was eight. He needed to take his meds.

“Yeah, the update? What did I get?” Steve got him a grin. “The light is pretty cool. What else did you throw in there?” He rooted around for a water bottle and a granola bar and started sorting through his medicine drawer, grabbing the pills he needed and lining them up. “Thor’s is unfair, in my opinion, unless you have something to counter it. Although Nat won last time, so I’ll just have to practice with it.”

“It’s going to have spikes that can come out.” Tony’s voice was thoughtful. “It’s better than having them out the whole time, because you’ll be able to let them fly in close, then send them out and disrupt the rotor blades- I’m sorry, what the hell are you doing?”

Steve laughed. “Taking my meds. Sorry, I know it’s a lot. It’s really not as bad as it looks, you can keep talking. Spikes sound really cool, I can see how that would be useful.” He started downing pills, grimacing at the taste of a few.

Tony stood and crossed to the desk, picking up the bottles and analyzing each carefully. “Hm,” he mused, and he began moving them around, stacking a couple together and setting a couple others separate from the odd little groupings. He tilted his head one way, then the other, eyes distant and yet somehow dissecting, as if the bottles were some complex equation on a board.

Steve eyed him with a smile. “I’ve checked,” he informed him. “They don’t sell for nearly what you think, you can’t trick Clint or Thor into buying them.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yes, because I need money.”

“You may not need money,” Steve agreed, “but you do have a need to mess with people.”

“Yeah, but not by stealing medications from my friends.” He didn’t seem bothered by the assumption. “Or by giving others medication that they don’t require. Drugs are all well and good, extremely enjoyable actually, but take the wrong one and you’ll be a mess long-term… I’m an ass, but not that much of one. Hm...” He moved one of the bottles to join another, tilting his head, then crossed to Bucky’s desk and pulled out a notebook, beginning to scribble tiny, surprisingly neat letters across the surface of the stolen paper.

“I know you’re not,” Steve assured him. “You’re a good person. What are you doing?” He examined the letters. “I swear it’s not as bad as it looks. Some of my stuff just needs a few more meds to take care of one thing.”

“Mmhm.” Equations joined the letters, long and complicated with various symbols that Steve was almost sure didn’t actually exist in mathematics. It seemed to be a combination of notes, math, and Tony’s own personal language or shorthand, and he had filled two pages in seconds. He studied it for a moment, tilting his head, then tore the pages out of the journal, apparently satisfied. “Okay, cool,” he said, standing and folding the papers as if they had just finished a long discussion. “Thanks.”

Steve blinked at him. “You’re… welcome? Can I ask what you’re so satisfied about? Did you just create new math?” He grinned.

“Not yet,” Tony said, smiling, but his eyes were still distant, clearly continuing to work. His fingers twitched almost like Steve’s did when he wanted to draw, but the motion was different, more of a tap of a calculator or flutter like counting on fingertips. “Maybe someday. I _am_ a genius, you know, and there are some serious gaps in the scientific processes… I don’t know. I’ll let you know if it pans out. I have to go work on this. Tell Bucky that I fixed his drone?”

“Yeah, of course.” Steve watched him bemusedly. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No.” He focused on Steve fully and smiled, his eyes crinkling as they met Steve’s. “You look good with paint on you,” he noted, reaching out and brushing a speckle of acrylic off Steve’s cheek. “You should paint more often.” 

Steve looked up at him, feeling his eyes widen slightly, then paused, Wanda’s suggestion coming back to him. It was strange, to think of kissing someone that he wasn’t completely in love with, that he wasn’t in a relationship with. He’d been raised to think that way, to feel that way, about people he started any kind of physical relationship with, regardless of how long that relationship would last.

But if he wasn’t gay… if he wanted Bucky aesthetically, because he was beautiful, and the physical aspect freaked him out, he could lose him. Steve couldn’t do that, there wasn’t a way that he could think of to deal with that.

Tony would be a good option, he realized suddenly. Tony was flirty with lots of people and so smart he surely could compartmentalize this if Steve explained that he just wanted to experiment. If Steve explained that he just wanted to try kissing another man, if he wanted to make sure that he was gay or bi or whatever, surely Tony wouldn’t make fun of him or make him embarrassed. Tony was a good person.

But how the hell were they going to have a conversation like that? How did you even start it? Steve cleared his throat, playing with a pen.

“Steve.” Tony raised an eyebrow down at him. “I can actually see you overthinking right now.”

Steve sighed. “Okay,” he said, putting the pen down. “So I’ve been talking to a friend and I’m trying to figure out…” he waved a hand, wishing he could just fall into a hell mouth right now. “Like. What I like. Gender wise.”

“Okay.” Tony leaned back against Bucky’s desk. “Nat. When you look at her, what do you want? When she was just in her sports bra for the match, or in jeans and her green sweater. When you look at her, what do you want from or with her?”

He thought about it. “She’s very pretty,” he allowed. “I like to draw her, I like to talk to her.”

“Then you’re not straight,” Tony said easily. “There’s not a straight man alive who doesn’t find Natasha Romanov hot. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay, because you could be asexual or demisexual by that same thought process. Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“Once,” Steve admitted. “It was fine, it was nice. Her lips were soft.” He shrugged a little.

“Okay.” Tony nodded slowly. “Have you ever kissed a guy?”

“No.” Steve played with the pen. “No, I haven’t. And I don’t want to start something and find out I’m not…” he shook his head. “Cause then you lose them.”

Tony watched him, then pushed off the desk and crossed to stand in front of him, one hand resting lightly at the back of Steve’s neck, the other hand falling to his hip. “Do you want to?” he asked quietly, voice a little lower than normal.

Steve looked up at him, his heart racing. “I… just to experiment?” He searched Tony’s eyes. _I think I’m falling for Bucky._ He couldn’t hurt Tony, didn’t want to lead him on. “Yes.”

Tony’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and Steve found himself wondering if they were actually brown or if they just looked that way. But then it didn’t matter, because then Tony was pulling him closer and leaning down, their lips pressing and meshing together. Tony’s hand on his hip slid, muscled arm winding around his waist and pulling him up against him.

Yep, Steve thought as he kissed him back, leaning up quickly. _Definitely gay._

Tony’s fingers curled against Steve’s skin, then pulled back slowly, smiling down at him. “Yeah?”

“Uh.” Steve blinked up at him. “Yeah. Okay. I’m gay.” He gave a laugh. “Gay.”

Tony’s smile was brilliant and he released him, hands loose on his hips now. “Well, there you go,” he said with amusement, then glanced around as the door rattled.

Steve looked around fast, panic burying a claw in his chest. “Please don’t tell him,” he begged, staring up at Tony, who looked down at him in surprise, then took a step back and withdrew his hands as the door opened.

“Hey,” Bucky called absently, not looking up at them yet. His headphones were on, playing loud enough that Steve could hear the Eagles song playing through. “How’s the paint- oh, hey, Tony.” He pulled his headphones off and offered a smile, though his forehead crinkled very slightly as he looked between Steve and Tony.

“The Eagles,” Tony scoffed. “God, do you have no taste?”

“They’re a classic for a reason,” Bucky retorted, though he did pull his phone out and pause the song. “What’s up?”

“Tony came by to talk about the drones and also look at my meds, apparently.” Steve shot him a quick smile. “How was your friend?”

That’s right. Bucky had been out with a ‘friend.’

“Ah, good.” He waved a hand. “Stressed, but good. What’s wrong with your meds?” Concern flickered across his face.

“Nothing,” Tony dismissed. “Necessarily. I’ll catch up with you guys later, I’ve got to go work on this.” He headed out, winking at Steve as he passed, and Bucky frowned after him.

Steve laughed a little. “He started taking notes on my medication. I have no idea why. I’m afraid to ask, to be honest.”

“Don’t take whatever he gives you,” he advised, eyes softening a little. “You’ve got paint on your face,” he noted, and reached out to rub his thumb across Steve’s cheekbone in an echo of Tony’s movement.

Steve looked up at him, giving a smile, and noted how Bucky’s movement was so similar, but it made Steve’s stomach clench, his breath catch, his heart race, in a way that Tony’s movement hadn’t.

Steve was gay. Steve was gay, which meant that he could kiss Bucky, could be with Bucky, and it wouldn’t freak him out. That was no longer an obstacle in their lives, not something he needed to be worried about.

“I’m a messy painter,” he agreed, tracing the shape of Bucky’s lips with his eyes, wondering what it would feel like to kiss Bucky that way, his hands on his hips, on the back of his neck. How would it feel if it was Bucky’s hands on his body, wrapping him in heat?

Bucky took in a slow breath, eyes wandering across his face, and then he lowered his hand. “It’s late, Stevie,” he said, voice lower than usual as he took a step back and licked his lips. “You need to get some rest. You’ve got class in the morning.”

Steve took in a breath he hadn’t even realized that he’d been holding. “It’s… it’s eight-thirty, Bucky.”

“Oh.” Bucky rubbed at the back of his neck, then gave a small laugh and shook his head, crossing to sit at his desk. “Guess I’ll work on homework for once,” he said, clearing his throat.

Was it even slightly possible that Bucky was as affected by Steve as Steve was affected by him? Was he gay? That seemed unlikely, but… he did seem a little off, and earlier, just before the car had honked at him…

Steve shook it off. “Yeah, how are classes going? We don’t talk about your classes as much as we should. How are you doing?”

“Not too bad. ASL is the only interesting one, although my class with Nat is fun just because she’s in it.” He turned his head, offering a smile. “We don’t talk about them because it’s boring as hell. Yours are way more interesting.”

Steve laughed. “Your classes are _interesting._ You’re taking sign language! And a bunch of other stuff. I’ll admit that your nutrition classes sound boring, and gym sounds terrible to have multiple times a day. Not that I wouldn’t work out if I could, but as of now it’s not exactly fun.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Bucky informed him, then opened his laptop and settled in to work. Steve chuckled and slowly went back to his painting, eyeing the bottles of medicine still lined up on the desk. He had no idea what Tony was doing, but he trusted him enough to know that it might be a good thing.

He was gay, Steve told himself, confused and relieved to know, finally, what was going on with his life. He was gay. And that meant that, if Bucky was amenable, maybe, someday… maybe there could be something there.

He smiled a little and focused on his project, trying to decide what was going to happen next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we're finally back up to speed! Sorry about the deletion, and welcome back to anyone who came back to find this!
> 
> Comments and feedback are adored!


	4. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky practices boxing with Steve, has a panic attack, skips group therapy, and intervenes when Steve gets in a fight. It's an eventful chapter, guys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: for panic attacks, internalized homophobia, and a mentioned past abusive relationship

“All right, try that again, but raise your right fist and drop your chin a little more.” Bucky reached out, correcting Steve’s posture carefully. “When you raise your chin like that, you leave your throat vulnerable.”

Steve gave a little grin. “You’re telling me. I’ve been throat-punched. Okay.” He dropped the pose, then went back into it, his chin dropped this time. “Better?”

“Better,” Bucky agreed, raising Steve’s other arm. “If you keep this one up, you’ve a better chance of parrying with it. Do you want to tell me the name of the people who throat-punched you? For no reason in specific.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head. He took this kind of thing weirdly lightly. It never failed to irritate Bucky; his roommate’s self-destructive streak, his utter lack of self-preservationary instinct. “No,” the slim boy informed Bucky. “I won’t tell you. I don’t trust you with the knowledge. You’re too protective for your own good.” He tapped Bucky’s nose with a fist. “Although I’d probably be the same way, if anyone _could_ actually hit you.”

“I’m sorry, did you just tell me that _I’m_ too protective for my own good?” Bucky stared at him, trying to ignore how ridiculously cute that mock punch had been. “Steve, this morning a guy wolf whistled at a girl and I had to hold you down at the table.”

Steve’s expression flattened at that. “That’s different,” he dismissed. “She was upset and it was going to bother her. He shouldn’t treat girls like that, so someone’s gotta stand up or he’ll do it and worse.”

“Okay, but why’s that person gotta be you?” Bucky laughed helplessly. “Why are you humanity’s protector?”

“Because.” Steve looked up at him, intent and serious. “I don’t like people like that, and no one else really seems to realize how bad it is, or how much it upsets people to be treated like that. People don't always realize that stuff sticks with you. It doesn’t matter if you win, it matters that you tried.”

Bucky let out a breath, breaking eye contact and sinking into a crouch as he scrubbed his hand through his hair. _He’s going to be the death of me,_ he marveled silently, then glanced up at Steve again, unable to keep from smiling as he looked at the other boy. “Try another punch, keep your arm up to parry this time.”

Steve nodded, squaring his shoulders, and threw a punch that, while still not quite right, was much better than his first one had been, keeping his other arm up to parry another attack. “Are you going to box with me?” he asked in interest. “So I can get better?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky watched him, monitoring his form. “Maybe. Do you want me to?”

On one hand, the thought was terrifying. What if Bucky didn’t moderate his strength? What if he slipped into that zone and actually started whaling on Steve? He’d break him in half, and the thought of Steve’s face, mottled and swollen and purple, made him want to vomit.

On the other hand, he didn’t exactly trust anyone _else_ to box with Steve, either. At least Bucky _wanted_ to moderate his strength, _wanted_ to teach him, _could_ teach him while keeping an eye on his asthma.

Steve punched again, this one a little stronger. “Your tone says maybe not. I don’t see me getting better without actually fighting someone.” He grinned. “And Nat scares me. Thor would destroy me. At least you’re not literally twice my height and three times my weight or an angry redhead. You _probably_ wouldn’t kill me.”

“Your confidence is staggering,” Bucky said dryly, straightening. “We’ll stick with the punching bag for today, until you’ve got the form down.” He reached out, curling his fingers around Steve’s wrist and straightening it carefully.

It was impressive, he thought as he did so. You could feel Steve’s bones just beneath his skin- he had admitted to Bucky that he struggled to gain or keep any weight at all, apparently partially because of one of his myriad health issues- and every bone and ligament felt so delicate. He really did sometimes feel like glass. But he was quite a bit stronger than Bucky had anticipated. Certainly he was no boxer, but the strength he was able to summon was actually impressive considering how small he was.

Bucky’s thumb brushed over the inside of Steve’s wrist, tracing the bones gently, and then he realized what he was doing and released him quickly to take a step back. “Try again, watch your footwork,” he instructed, clearing his throat.

Steve flushed a little and sighed. “My feet are stupid,” he informed him. “Why can’t I just plant and fight like that?” but he ran through the moves again anyway.

“Planting is how you get hit, punk. You don’t have a cushion or barrier or shield, you can’t just absorb the blows.” Bucky crossed his arms. “Nice. This time, throw the punch as you move left. Yeah, good.”

“A shield would be so cool,” Steve mused, then punched again, moving left. “You’re going to be a good teacher,” he informed Bucky, smacking at the punching bag. “You do a good job.”

“Bah. You’re biased,” Bucky dismissed, catching the bag and steadying it. “You can hardly judge me as a teacher with just this.”

Steve grinned up at him, resting his hands on the bag and taking in a deep breath. “I don’t think that’s true,” he disagreed, breathing hard. “I’m not biased and neither are you. You taught me something, I learned. Unbiased.” He sat and opened a bottle of water, looking up at Bucky with a smile. “I’ve never fought with a real punching bag before. That was cool.”

 _I would absolutely wreck him._ Bucky had to look up at the ceiling, feeling his skin heat. How could someone like him be with someone like Steve? Someone so delicate and innocent and good? His mind flickered back to the car that had blown its horn at them, to the way Steve had startled back in surprise and embarrassment, and he felt his insides go cold. Being with Steve would break him to pieces, in one way or another.

 _That’s internalized homophobia and it’s from your father,_ Bucky identified and told himself sharply as his chest tightened in a semblance of panic. _It’s not factual. There is nothing wrong with being gay or liking Steve._

 _You live with him. He lets his guard down around you because he lives with you and you’re taking advantage of that,_ the cold voice in his head that sounded so like his father’s responded.

 _No. No, that’s not what’s happening._ Bucky flattened a shaky hand against the punching bag, feeling very far away, willing control over his body into his muscles again. _I’m not taking advantage of him. I care about him. That’s not wrong. It’s not immoral._

 _You will break him to pieces, one way or another. Leave him in bruises and filth, just like Brock left you._ The other half of his mind was coldly satisfied with the assessment.

 _I won’t. I won’t. I’m better than this and I’m better than him.. I know better than this. I won’t hurt Steve._ His own certainty was starting to unravel with his breath and he knew he’d been silent and still for far too long, because Steve was looking up at him, concerned now. _I won’t hurt him. I won’t break him. There’s nothing wrong with this, it wouldn’t hurt him, but I won’t- I won’t destroy him, I won’t ruin him._

But what did he mean by that? He wouldn’t ruin Steve because it wouldn’t ruin him to be with Bucky? Or he wouldn’t ruin Steve because he wasn’t going to let himself touch him and defile him like that? Suddenly he wasn’t sure which angle he was protesting, wasn’t sure why the world felt _so_ tight and airless around him.

He had been ruined by Brock Rumlow, hadn’t he?

Bucky Barnes wasn’t prone to bouts of lack of confidence or self-doubt. But then, he’d never in his life wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted the angelic being next to him. Angelic was right, he thought distantly, a little wildly. Beautiful and blonde and delicate with surprising strength. An avenging temper and ferocity. A face crafted by the gods. A body not meant for mortals to sully.

What the hell was happening?

“Hey,” Steve said, getting to his feet and reaching out. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” His quick eyes searched Bucky, something very like panic flashing across his face. “What… what hurts?” He touched Bucky’s arm, his fingers resting on the tattoos as he moved closer, in Bucky’s personal space and not even slightly worried about it. Steve had pretty much always been like that, always sat close and smiled and laughed and not flinched or been uncomfortable in any way that Bucky could sense when he touched him or came close to the smaller boy.

Steve’s pupils had widened as he looked up at Bucky. The same heat he’d felt, the same kind of need and want reflected in the pale face that now looked up at him so worriedly. Did that make it okay? Did that mean that it would be okay? Or did it just mean that Bucky had to work that much harder to be a good example, to steer him right, to protect him from bullies and monsters and Bucky himself?

“I’m okay,” Bucky said, but his voice sounded oddly shallow, oddly raw, and his throat felt like someone was gripping it. “I’m okay.”

“No you’re not.” Steve’s expression hardened and he glared up at Bucky. “What, so _you_ get to know all about my problems and when I’m upset or freak out but I don’t get to know when you are? Why can’t I protect you too?”

“I’m not freaking out.” Again, the words were oddly breathless, and the only steadiness in the world was the hand on his arm, the warmth there, the anger in that gorgeous face. “Am I freaking out?”

“You’re freaking out.” Steve pushed him down to sit, then took Bucky’s hand and rested it on his chest, keeping his eyes on Bucky’s. “Breathe,” he ordered. “With me. Until you can do it on your own.” He sat between Bucky’s feet, his knees resting on Bucky’s legs and his free hand that wasn’t holding Bucky’s hand to his chest resting on the taller boy’s knee. “You’re freaking out, just breathe with me. It’s okay.” He shook his head. “You’re safe, Buck. I’ve got you.”

“I’m fine.” Bucky focused on Steve’s shoulders, his collarbones, forcing himself to take in even breaths. “I don’t have asthma, I’m fine. I’m just- maybe I-” he stopped, taking in another breath. “Maybe I stood up too fast.”

“No.” Steve’s tone was steel, unwavering. “It’s not. I recognize an anxiety or panic attack when I see one, Bucky. It’s alright. Just breathe through it. Pick out three things you can see, two you can hear, and one you can smell. Ground yourself through your senses.”

“I don’t have anxiety.” He had a lot of problems, but anxiety had never been one of them. But he reached out, curling his fingers around Steve’s forearm, and obeyed. His heart rate slowed, his breaths coming easier, and he leaned back against the punching bag, feeling oddly tired, like he’d just finished a jog. “Sorry,” he said, taking in a breath that was so much easier. “Sorry. I don’t know what that was.”

“I’ve seen it happen to a lot of people.” Steve hadn’t taken his eyes off Bucky. “What triggered it? Do you know?” His hand was still curled around Bucky’s at his heart, still sitting between Bucky’s legs. “It’s important to know your triggers.”

“I’ve never had an anxiety attack in my life.” Bucky couldn’t meet Steve’s eyes, too bewildered and off-balance. “I don’t have anxiety, I don’t have triggers, I don’t get anxious about anything.” Anxious seemed like about the right word for how he’d been feeling… but that was insane. Could people without anxiety have an anxiety attack? He never worried about anything, he just went with the flow. Bucky swallowed, shaking his head, and finally forced himself to look his roommate in the eyes.

Steve looked calm and a little sad, his hand tightening on Bucky’s. “It’s okay. It happens to the best of us. Obviously.” His eyes warmed a little. “It doesn’t make you weak, Bucky. It’s okay that you freak out. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s human. When we overload, we have attacks like that, where everything feels like a lot. I’ve had them too. It’s okay. You had an anxiety attack. You need to think through what started it, so you can be prepared next time.”

“Sorry.” Bucky took in another breath and loosened his hand quickly, easing up on the pressure on Steve’s hand. “I didn’t know that was going to happen. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”

Steve stared at him with what looked like anger, though Bucky couldn’t place why that would be. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Barnes.”

“What?” Bucky blinked, confused.

“You help me with _everything.”_ Steve bristled. “You’re going to apologize for having a problem and needing a minute to calm down after you literally had to make me breathe a few days ago? Are you kidding me? You have no idea all the insanity I’ve seen for much less reason. I don’t know you completely maybe, but I know enough to know that if you’re having an attack about something, it’s something fucking serious. Don’t downplay it or act like it’s a burden on me.” He glared at Bucky, eyes fiery blue-green in anger. “I’m supposed to take care of you. You’re _my_ responsibility.”

Bucky felt his lips curve up in a smile, unable to resist. “You’re really… I like watching you get angry. You’re so alive.” He dropped his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not your responsibility. You’re my responsibility. I’m supposed to take care of you, not the other way around.”

Steve huffed, annoyed, but didn’t move out of the circle of Bucky’s legs, a pink flush washing over his cheeks and nose. “That’s stupid. You’re almost as reckless as I am. You need someone to help you and it may as well be me. And if you like me when I’m angry you should let me fight more.”

“No, I also like you healthy and in one piece.” Bucky snorted, feeling a semblance of normality settle back into his bones. “Absolutely not. You don’t need to fight anyone.”

“I might fight you, if you don’t stop being all secretive. Jerk.” His smile was small, but warm as he got up, holding out a hand for Bucky. “I’m in one piece. Rarely ever after a fight have I _lost_ any pieces.”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky took his hand and let him ‘pull’ Bucky up, in reality putting his weight on his own legs. “I’m not secretive, I’m just dumb.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “You’re not dumb. You put on a good show because it’s easier, but you’re not.” He shook his head. “Let’s go get some food, there’s some good dinner out there today. Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Bucky released him, taking in a breath and offering a smile.

He wasn’t going to ruin Steve. Everything was fine. He just had to move slow and think through his own actions.

* * *

“Hey, Jess.” Bucky leaned against the wall beside his friend, taking the bottle from her hand and taking a swig. “You skipping group again this week?”

He couldn’t point any blame or judgement. He was up here, after all, not down inside with the others.

“People in groups like that just want to get off on other people’s bullshit. Get your own hootch, mooch.” Jessica took the bottle back, but after a few drinks, reluctantly held it out. “It’s just a circle jerk of pain and I’m not feeling it today.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He took a swig, humming at the taste of the whiskey. “I probably _should_ go today.” More than other days, it could maybe help or shed some light or… something. But the thought of sitting down there, of admitting how spectacularly fucked up he had discovered his brain was… no. Jessica had the right go of it. “Just not feelin’ it. Thought I might find you up here.”

She’d always liked sitting at the top of the stairs. She’d admitted once in group that she used to have a fire escape she’d sat on as a teenager when she needed to think. Then she’d stormed out of the room because someone had looked at her too sympathetically.

Jessica Jones didn’t do sympathy. She went to the meetings, she’d explained to Bucky the first time he’d seen her here, only because it was important to some of the people in her life. So she came into the building, she attended the actual meetings on occasion, but mostly she sat up high and listened to the quiet babble of voices below.

She looked up at him now, narrowing her dark eyes sharply in the way she had, being bluntly obvious about her thoughts on whatever you’d said. “God. Are you here for a heart to heart? I’ll knock you down the stairs.” She propped her boots up on the railing and pulled another bottle out of her bag, popping the top. “We all get days like that. You get through ‘em.”

Bucky snorted. “C’mon, Jones, you think I’d turn to you for a heart to heart?” He took another drink and set it aside. “Nah. But if I go back now, the others’ll know I skipped out.” Every one of his friends aside from Steve knew when these meetings were, and Nat had threatened him with bodily harm on more than one occasion when he tried to skip. “Figured if I was stuck here, might as well get a drinking buddy during. And free booze.”

“You’re going to pay for some at some point, Barnes,” she threatened. “Just stay here and fuck ‘em all.” She’d been drinking a lot longer than the half hour she’d usually be at by this point. “Drinking buddies become beggars and I’m not about that.” Her eyes returned to his face, examining him, then snorted. “Seen you around lately. You look happier usually.”

“Hm.” Bucky snorted. “Yeah, that’s usually when things hit the fan, innit?” He watched her for a moment, then, “How’re things going with Luke?”

Something in her expression softened slightly and she leaned back against the wall. “Fine. He’s the one who dragged me here today. I came in at least, so.” She shrugged, playing with the cap. “He’s a good guy. You and him. Pretty much it.”

“Oh, there’s lots of good guys,” Bucky disagreed lightly, swinging himself up to sit on the edge of the railing. He watched the students meander up and down the main university street below, crowds of them gathering here and there or just hurrying to their destinations. “And then there’s others.”

They drank in silence for a while as the sky darkened around them, the moon rising slowly, and Bucky pondered this.

“Do you think we’re fucked up for good, Jess? I know what _they_ say.” He gestured to the building they were standing on, to the group meeting in the basement. “And I know you’re cynical as shit, so it’s fine if you do. But what do you think? Do you think there’s a way up for us?”

She thought about it, taking a long pull of her whiskey. “I think you can come back up,” she said, eyes unfocused. “You’re good. You’re going to be okay. What he did, you’re going to go past it someday. You’ll have to claw, it’ll be hard, but you’ll be okay.” She looked up at him, words slurring slightly. “I used to think I couldn’t come back. I dunno now. Maybe.”

Bucky blinked down at her, then felt himself smile slowly at her, warmth that he suspected was _not_ alcohol-induced spreading through his chest. “I think so,” he agreed, reaching up. He unwound his scarf from his neck and bundled it loosely around hers, too quickly for her to protest. “They’re about to finish up down there. C’mon, we’ll walk out with them.”

She sighed at him. “You’re too nice,” she groused. “You should be more of an asshole.” She patted the scarf around her neck. “This is warm. Matt keeps stealing my scarves.”

“Is that so?” Bucky chuckled, tossing the whiskey bottle into the trash can as they passed. He kept himself one step behind her, ready to reach out and catch her if she tripped on the stairs at all. She wasn’t as drunk as she could be, but he didn’t want to run the risk that she could trip or fall. He kept his hand half-extended where she wouldn’t see it, prodding her into talking about her plans for joining the rest of her team for HvZ.

He scanned the front lawn once they made it through the doors and relaxed slightly when he found Trish. Good. With Jessica this drunk, he would have found an excuse to walk her back to her dorm, but she would have argued him on it the entire way. It was much easier to hand her off to Trish and know that she would be safe.

“Hey there, Trish,” he greeted her.

“Oh my god. I don’t need a babysitter,” Jess grumbled. 

“What?” Trish widened her eyes at her. “This is the only building on campus with a Starbucks.” She raised her cup, taking a drink to hide her smile, and Bucky snorted. 

“Do you want me to walk you guys home?” He glanced at the dark campus around them and Trish rolled her eyes.

“We can handle ourselves. And Simpson’s on his way anyway.”

“Right.” He nodded and turned, heading back off toward his dorm. “See you next week, Jess.” _Maybe inside next time._

If even Jessica Jones thought that they weren’t beyond repair, maybe they weren’t. Maybe the shit in his head was stuff that he could take back out.

* * *

“Yeah. I’m on my way to meet my roommate now, but I’ll give you a call later.” Bucky glanced at his watch. “Yeah. Yeah, I love you too.” He crossed the street at a jog, then paused, tilting his head as he hung up. The sound was familiar- a certain rhythmic cracking. 

Fists against flesh, he determined, then felt his stomach drop and ran, turning the corner sharply. Steve was getting to his feet, unsteady and with blood on his lips, putting his fists up again as his opponent stepped forward.

Bucky wasn’t fully sure what happened next. His fingers would recall grabbing the back of the man’s throat and hauling him backward, his knuckles would remember cracking against a cheekbone, but his mind didn’t catch the seconds that passed, everything blurring together.

It was just another opponent in the ring, just another idiot who let themself get trapped against the wall.

He did manage to stop before he got too far, before his opponent hit the ground. “Go,” he ordered, grabbing him by the collar of the shirt and hauling him away from the alley, back toward the street. The man stumbled, off-balance and disoriented from the blows to the face, and obeyed at a half-run. Bucky didn’t bother to watch him go, instead turning toward Steve.

Steve was leaning back against the wall, a hand to his chest, breathing in raggedly. “He hit his girl,” he managed reedily. “He told her he’d hit her again.”

Bucky tried to take in a breath to calm himself and moved forward, reaching a bloodied hand to Steve’s shoulder. “Okay. We can talk about that here in a second, but is this going to be an attack or is just exertion?” He squeezed Steve’s shoulder with one hand, fishing out the extra inhaler he now kept in his pocket at all times. “Take it,” he ordered, pressing it into Steve’s hand.

He looked from the inhaler to Bucky, then gave that soft smile again. It would have been better if it hadn’t been bloody, but it was still nice to see. He took a puff and held it, resting his head back against the wall and keeping a hand on his chest, his foot tapping erratically.

Okay, not answering wasn’t a good sign. Bucky pressed down on his shoulder, guiding him to sit, and moved to sit beside him, arranging him back into his lap. “You’re okay,” Bucky assured him, wrapping an arm around Steve’s shoulders, replicating the pose he’d held him in the first time. “You did good, he’ll think twice next time. I shouldn’t be encouraging you.” Steve’s laugh was reedy and Bucky resisted the urge to press his lips against his golden hair. “Okay. In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four. In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four. Good job, Stevie. Do it again.”

Steve obeyed, his head resting back against Bucky’s shoulder as he took in breaths, his hands resting on Bucky’s arms. It didn’t seem like as bad an attack this time, but the wheezing, jagged quality of his breathing was still terrifying. He felt the tension in Steve’s body ease slightly by degrees, the breath coming easier as he took another puff from his inhaler.

“I’ve got you,” Bucky assured him softly, voice low. “You’re doing great. In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four.” He squeezed him a little. “I got you.”

After another minute or so, Steve sagged bonelessly back into Bucky, squeezing his arms and turning his head into Bucky’s neck. “Thank you,” Steve mumbled against his skin. “‘M sorry. Been trying not to fight as much.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky hugged him a little more tightly, trying not to focus on just how perfectly Steve fit into him like this, trying not to obsess over how good it felt to have Steve nuzzling into his neck. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”

Steve relaxed a little more into him, giving a sigh. “You’re so warm,” he grumbled, his tone tired and contented. “How is it you always stay so warm? It’s not fair, you're pretty and badass and funny _and_ always warm.”

He thought Bucky was pretty and badass? Bucky couldn’t stop himself from smiling, settling his chin on Steve’s head. “I don’t have an answer for you, Stevie. I just run warm. The funniness is just pure, raw talent. I’m hilarious.”

“You are.” Steve gave a weak chuckle. “You’re very funny. Definitely my favorite.” He didn’t move, didn’t shift away, didn’t seem to _want_ to. He seemed perfectly happy sitting on a dirty alley floor with Bucky wrapped around him. “How did you know I was here?”

“I heard a fight, took an educated guess.” Bucky gave a huff of a laugh, shaking his head a little. This wasn’t ruining him. Steve was weak right now, Bucky was providing comfort and help. This was being responsible. “Next time, call me. I can help you. Are you hurt?”

“Eh.” Steve sighed, this sigh annoyed rather than contented. “I’m fine. Bruising. I’ve had worse. And it happened _really_ fast. How was I supposed to call you when he was swinging? Siri never listens to me. She hates me.”

“Okay, but he only swung on you because you insulted him first,” Bucky pointed out. “If you’d called me and _then_ insulted him, it would have been fine.”

“He was threatening to hit his girlfriend _again._ He said again.” Steve’s tone was all fire and anger, tension returning to the slender body against Bucky’s. “I couldn’t wait.”

Bucky let out a breath, nodding a little. Steve was tense, and the moment was over, so Bucky released him, pulling back against the wall slightly so that Steve could sit up. “I know,” he agreed when Steve disentangled himself and settled a foot or so away. “I don’t blame you. Come on, we need to get ice on those bruises before they swell.” He pushed to his feet, offering a hand as he put the inhaler back in his pocket with his other hand.

Steve’s fingers curled around his and he let Bucky pull him up, looking up at him. “You’re a good person,” he said, settling on his feet. He had a bruise on his cheek and another on his collarbone, and his lip was bloody. But he still gave Bucky a smile. “I’m glad I got stuck with you, Barnes.”

Bucky smiled back at him, reaching out and brushing the blood away from his lip with a gentle thumb. “I am very grateful I got stuck with you,” he agreed quietly. Then he pulled himself away and started back toward their dorm, because if he didn’t move now, he wouldn’t. “Clint’s supposed to meet us back at the room anyway,” he said, clearing his throat and brushing his thumb against his palm as it tingled with the memory of how soft Steve’s lip had been.

“Oh. Cool.” Steve cleared his throat and Bucky heard his shoes move a little faster to catch up. “Oh, cool. What are we doing?”

“Just hanging out. Nat’s working late tonight and he wanted to binge some new show that got uploaded,” Bucky agreed quietly, this thought enough to quell the tactile memory of holding Steve, finally breaking down the replay his brain had been performing. “Don’t know which one.”

Luckily, they were on a small campus, so it only took four minutes to reach their dorm. It was a short enough time that Bucky managed to keep his hands to himself and to refrain from yelling at Steve over the stupidity of getting into a fight when he was _that_ skinny. It was not a short enough time to keep his mind from returning to its replay of Steve’s frame tucked against his. Steve was equally quiet and reflective, but when Bucky spared a glance at him, he was flushed and looked happy. Not upset or stressed, not unhappy.

“Hey, bitches.” Arms came around their arms, Clint grinning at them. “You actually _have_ a TV and Nat’s gone and Thor’s off doing some sorority chick and Tony’s being a genius. Look at these.” He turned his head to show beautiful, sleek hearing aids that tucked behind and on top of his ears. “These things are _insane.”_

“ _Damn.”_ Bucky stared, moving forward to touch the shell of his ear. “Are those the ones you ordered, or are they the ones Tony made?”

Clint scoffed. “The ones Tony made. They’re _purple._ I cancelled my order, look at how gorgeous they are. Three days and he’s revolutionizing this shit. It’s insane. You can’t even imagine.” His expression grew dreamy. “I actually _heard_ Nat’s voice this morning. Heard it for real. How the fuck any of you actually talk when you could listen to _her_ talk, I don’t know. But I can hear you guys, and everything. I’ve just been sitting in my room and listening to videos and music.” He grinned in delight. “I’m gonna buy that son of a bitch the biggest fucking cake you’ve ever seen.”

“That’s amazing,” Steve marveled. “He’s insane. He’s so good at what he does, that’s crazy.”

“That’s incredible,” Bucky agreed warmly. “He’s been working on the designs for a while, I know, so I’m glad that all that work paid off.” He eyed Clint speculatively as he held the door open for them both. “What was Nat doing in your room this morning?” 

“Did I say she was in my room?” Clint blinked at him innocently. “Pretty sure I just said I heard her voice. Maybe she called me. Maybe I took coffee to her. Maybe I took her to breakfast.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky agreed, chuckling as he led them up the stairs. It was good to see him so happy, he reflected as they walked. Clint was generally a cheerful person, but being able to fully hear again had to be a wild experience. Tony had been working on the designs for months, trying to workshop them into perfection, but he’d never said anything to Clint about it. Bucky still wasn’t honestly sure why.

“ _Anyway,_ so my point is, it’s insane. I can hear everything. Do you know my neighbors fight all the time? And my plumbing creaks. And my door makes a weird sound when you kick it.” Clint laughed. “I literally skipped school and just ran around to listen to stuff. He even set it up so it can sync with my phone. It can go straight in now, instead of plugging it in with a cord. Stark’s insane. I don’t even know what I’m going to do to thank him for it. But it’ll be great. Maybe I’ll spray paint his name on the mascot.”

Steve stared up at him. “Oh my god, Clint, _no._ Belly’s too awesome to spray-paint.” He unlocked their door and Steve settled in his desk. Bucky felt a small flicker of amusement and gratitude that Steve hadn’t taken Bucky’s bed. He wouldn’t be able to sleep if he could smell him on his pillows. 

“I’ll figure it out,” Clint said decisively, and Bucky snorted as he sat on the floor, studying the split in the skin at his middle knuckle impassively. He must have been hitting harder than he thought.

“Tony’s hard to get presents for,” he said aloud. “He has everything, and he has people to do pretty much any ‘act’ you could do for him.”

“Yeah but he’s also not really like all those asshole rich guys who _would_ make people do stuff,” Clint said, consideringly as he settled on Steve’s bed. “I’ll think about it. What happened to your hand? Who’d you hit? You and Steve wail on each other?”

“Of course I didn’t.” Bucky felt himself bristle as he dried his hands, ignoring Steve. “Put that ice back on your face before I hobble you,” he snapped at his roommate, not looking away from Clint. “I’d never hit him.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Clint’s smile softened, fingers flashing out an apology in sign-language to underline it. “I’m sorry. My humor’s all over the fucking place. I’m just being stupid.”

“Buck actually beat the hell out of someone who had gotten a few good shots in on me,” Steve said, voice cheerful as he headed for the fridge. “I got lucky that he was coming along.”

“Lucky,” Bucky muttered, crouching and pulling his first aid kit out from under his bed. He pressed a bandaid over the split in his knuckles and grabbed his usual bottle of bruise cream, which he handed to Steve. 

Steve took it with a smile, then gestured to Bucky’s hand. “Can I see?”

Bucky inclined his head, trying not to hyper-focus on the feeling of Steve holding his hand. “The skin’s just fragile there,” he said, more casually than he thought he’d be able to. “It doesn’t hurt, it’ll heal up in a few days.”

“Yeah, I know.” He gave Bucky a quick smile. “You didn’t crack anything? You’re used to having gloves on.”

“Oh, that’s true.” Bucky glanced at his hands in mild interest, rolling each of his fingers. There was a slight popping sound when he moved two of the fingers on his right hand, but they moved regardless and it didn’t hurt anywhere near what it could have. “No, I’m fine,” he decided, studying them for a moment longer.

Steve turned Bucky’s hand over, manipulating the fingers gently. “Hand me some tape,” he said. “And scissors. I’ll bind them and they’ll heal up.”

 _I miss Natasha,_ Bucky thought to himself grimly. There was no one to exchange his suffering look with. She would cackle, knowing exactly how screwed he was. Clint would normally, but he was so distracted by the hearing aid and wandering through the TV options, he didn’t notice.

“No, it’s fine,” Bucky assured him instead. “They aren’t cracking or hurting much, they just pop. Don’t worry about it, Stevie. Put the ice back on your face and start applying that bruise cream before you swell up like a balloon at a birthday party.”

Steve gave him a look, but let his hand go and put the peas back on his face, working on the bruise cream and massaging it into his collarbone, moving his shirt slightly to reach it.

 _Holy Christ._ Bucky averted his eyes sharply, feeling his mouth go dry and his skin warm, tearing his mind away from the concept of following those pale fingers with his lips. Bucky stared at Clint instead, swallowing, and Clint raised an eyebrow, tuning back in suddenly. _It’s a good thing Steve is too polite and innocent to tease me,_ Bucky thought to himself, somewhat wildly. _I’m already so fucked and none of it is intentional._

Steve stood. “I’ll be back,” he said, grabbing a pair of sweatpants and heading out into the hall, toward the bathroom. The door shut behind him and Clint grinned, looking far too pleased.

“Didn’t know you were into hobbits.”

“I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” Bucky warned him, his voice a little hoarser than he’d like. “How can _anyone_ just look like that?”

“He’s pretty,” Clint agreed. “Not my type, but I can see it. Why don’t you go for it?”

Bucky let out a breath, dropping his head back a little. “Well, for the first thing, he’s my roommate. If he doesn’t reciprocate and gets weirded out _or_ if we break up and then are stuck living together, that’s awful and awkward as hell.”

Clint snorted. “True. But I don’t think he’ll get weirded out. You should see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. It’s actually kind of gross.” He rolled his eyes and Bucky watched his hands, curling them into fists and then flattening them again.

“And then the other thing is…” he faltered for a moment, then, “My dad just got in a lot deeper than I thought he did.” Clint had been his roommate for a year, he’d met James Barnes Sr. a few times, and had overheard a few video chats. “I _know_ that there’s nothing wrong with being gay. I’ve been with guys before, just casual and fun. I tell my girls all the time that it’s normal and healthy to be gay and out. _I’m_ gay and out. But then when I think about touching Steve, I just-“ he broke off. “I don’t get this weird freaking panicky feeling. Why? Because he’s not just some casual thing? Because I want to keep him safe? I don’t get it, but all of a sudden I feel like it’s wrong, like I’d be perverting him or ruining him. And I _know_ that’s wrong, but I just…” he swallowed.

Clint moved to sit beside him, their arms and legs resting against each other. “Listen, my dude,” he said, voice gentling. “I know I fuck around, but you’re an awesome person. Steve’s pretty cool. Being with him isn’t wrong or perverted. I think you’re in your head because it’s never been for keeps before. It’s like Nat, right? She’s with guys, and it’s not a big deal. But she doesn’t want to try with anyone she knows it could last with. I think you’re probably scared of what happens then. With your dad and Daniel.” He bumped Bucky with his shoulder. “But they’re trash. We’ll just adopt you.”

“That’s not legally possible,” Bucky informed him, smiling a little and leaning against Clint. “You’re right. And I know you are. But the other day it hit me and it was just so much. I feel crazy, because I logically know it’s nuts and yet my body freaks out on me. It’s bullshit. I don’t want them in my head. I didn’t know they _were_ in my head.”

Clint smiled a little, pressing back against him a little. “Yeah,” he agreed, playing with his hearing aid. “I get that. But you’ve got to get him out, man. There’s nothing wrong with you wanting Steve. The guy thinks you walk on fucking water and you’re good for each other. I’ve been watching.” He gave Bucky a smile. “Take things slow. _Real_ slow. Just start by talking and saying you want to try. Start holding hands or hugging or shit, don't go straight to banging each other or making out, and maybe that will help.” He play-punched Bucky’s arm. “But you _should_ talk to him. Before Tony tries something.”

“Tony tries something and I’ll-” Bucky stopped himself, letting out a breath. Clint gave a small smile, watching him consideringly.

“How’s it been?” he asked after a beat. “Has that been the only leftover in your head?”

He was asking about Rumlow. Bucky rubbed his knuckles absently, looking away. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Most of it, I think, is from my dad. Steve is the complete opposite of Brock. I know that. I don’t connect the two, I don’t think he’s like him. But at the same time-- Brock fucked _me_ up. What if _I’m_ like him? What if I pass that on to Steve?”

“You won’t. You’re nothing like him,” Clint informed him calmly. “But tell me, then- what are you afraid of doing specifically? What are you afraid will happen with him, when it comes to that?”

“I don’t know.” Bcuky shook his head. “I just don’t want to drag him down. I wouldn’t do what he did. I know that. I wouldn’t treat him like he was…” Bucky rolled his shoulders back. “I don’t know. My dad spewed that homophobic bullshit for years, and then I got away from it, and then I ended up with Brock. If I hadn’t already… Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I just need to be careful. I don’t want to make a pattern.”

“Hey.” Clint ducked his head to meet Bucky’s eyes. “All you do is make that dude feel damn good about himself. He lights up when you’re in the room. He smiles whenever someone says your name. It’s gross. Don’t carry them in your head.” He bumped Bucky’s shoulder with his fist. “You won’t make a pattern. There’s no pattern to make. You’re nothing like that with him. I’ve been paying attention- I should’ve noticed the first time, it’s not happening again.”

“Clint, it wasn’t your responsibility.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “I was your first roommate your first semester of college, why would you have noticed anything was weird? We were barely ever in the dorm.” By design, no doubt. The stupid support group had talked plenty about the steps of abuse, about isolation and how important that was to the relationship’s lifespan. 

Clint's eyes were tight. “Still, I should have figured it out. My point is, I’ve been paying attention this time. And there’s none of that. You make him feel good. He makes you feel good. That’s a good thing, that’s a great thing. You’re not going to mess this up.”

“If I do, will you punch me in the face?” Bucky grinned at him a little.

Clint knocked his knuckles against Bucky’s face. “Yup,” he said gently. “Always, my dude.”

Steve walked back in, now with an oversized sweater and a pair of sweatpants. Bucky took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling rather than at his roommate. The sweater was his.

“Hey, you said I could borrow something if I didn’t have anything,” he said, a little embarrassed. “I need to go do laundry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Bucky glanced at him and felt his shoulders roll back, heat prickling over his skin. _Christ_ he was a mess. It was just his roommate wearing his sweater. It was nothing. It was everything. “It- looks good on you.”

“Thanks.” Steve gave a laugh. “It’s like a million sizes too big, but it’s warm.” He settled in his desk, curling his feet under him, and the sweater shifted a little, revealing a little of his collarbones and shoulder.

Clint was trying _very_ hard not to smile and signed, _is it better if I stay and distract you?_

 _I think I’m just going to kill myself,_ Bucky signed back, unable not to stare at the bare, slender shoulder.

Clint gave a laugh and got up, grabbing the remote. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “But I need me some trashy TV. Steve-O, you’ll like this show. It’s about tattoo artists and shit, it’s all about the art of it.” He pulled up Netflix.

“Oh yeah?” Steve looked around in interest and moved to sit next to Bucky, keeping his notebook in his lap as Clint took his bed. Bucky internally cursed. He’d wanted to keep him _off_ his bed. His blankets were going to smell like Steve Rogers and Bucky wasn’t going to sleep for hours tonight. “That’s cool. I’ve been looking at different tattoo art styles. They’re fascinating.”

“They are. If you ever want one, my artist is amazing.” Bucky glanced down at his arm, rolling his wrist and watching the ‘metal’ shift as he did. “Highly recommend him. He did Natasha’s, too, and Tony’s.”

“Tony has a tattoo?” Steve blinked up at him. He must have seen Nat’s at the match, Bucky registered. “Weird. Your tattoo is amazing, I’d definitely go there if and when I get one.”

“Yeah, Tony’s got a chestpiece,” Bucky agreed, glancing up at the screen as the intro sequence to the reality show began. “It’s actually really great, you’ll have to have him show it to you sometime.”

“Really?” Steve considered. “Yeah, I’ll have to get him to show me sometime.” Bucky frowned hard as he realized that would mean Steve would be looking at a shirtless Tony. “He was in here the other day, looking at my medicines. I have no idea what he was doing.”

“Fixing you,” Clint said wisely. “Let the Brain work. He fixed my hearing aids, it’s incredible what that dude can do.”

“Yeah, but your hearing aid is a machine, and Steve isn’t,” Bucky pointed out, troubled by the idea of Tony messing with Steve’s medications. He wasn’t a doctor. Sure, the genius could research the hell out of the various drugs and Steve’s various ailments, but he didn’t have Steve’s medical history, nor did Tony have any medical _training._

Steve shrugged. “Not like I could get _much_ worse,” he said practically. “I’ve already got faulty lungs, a faulty heart, faulty blood, and a messed-up spine. Oh, and my eyes are weird.” He started laughing. “And on occasion my brain misfires, and I’ve got flat feet.”

“Jesus.” Clint looked heavenward. “You’re a goddamn mess.”

“Yeah, but you’re still _alive,”_ Bucky protested. “And per- and good just like you are. Tony doesn’t have training or a license, don’t let him mess with you.”

Steve laughed and they fell quiet, settling into the show.

They had several good hours of watching, in which they made popcorn and roundly abused the contestants. Nat showed up eventually and joined them for the finale episodes, settling herself on Steve’s bed beside Clint as they caught her up to speed. They finished the series at almost midnight.

“Oh, come _on.”_ Bucky threw a handful of popcorn at the screen. “Tommy should have won that, his was _amazing._ That’s bullshit, straight bullshit.”

Clint booed, throwing handfuls of his own and Steve glared. “His technique was amazing, his shading was perfect, his lines were great, he was _constantly_ doing something different, that’s the stupidest ending I have ever seen.”

“This thing is rigged,” Bucky muttered darkly, turning to grab his Coke, then paused. Natasha was completely asleep, stretched out across the bed with her head in Clint’s lap, her fingers curled loosely- one hand by her face, her other hand tucked around Clint’s knee. “Shoot, we should probably wake her up,” Bucky said, reaching for her shoulder.

“Wake her up and I’ll kill you,” Clint said with a mock-glare. “She’s _tired._ She’s been working her ass off, she needs a bit longer.” He stroked her hair back. “I’ll wake her up in a minute.”

 _Oh, is that why we aren’t waking her?_ Bucky signed to him, raising his eyebrows with a grin. 

Clint flipped him off and Steve grinned up at Bucky. “I don’t know a lot of sign language,” he chuckled, “But I know that one. She does look really tired.”

 _There are two beds,_ Clint signed back. _You and Bilbo could sleep on that one._

Bucky stared at him. _You wouldn’t pull the ‘there’s only one bed’ trope on me._

Clint grinned slowly. “Try me,” he said with a wink. “Go ahead and play this game.” 

“What do you want, you monster?” Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“Mmm. Your panic is payment enough.” He stroked Nat’s hair. “ _Milaya,_ wake up.” He smiled down at her as she peered up at him, sleepy and frowning. “Bucky and Steve need to sleep.”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry.” She sighed, sitting up. “Who won?”

“Ugh. Shane.” Clint rolled his eyes. “It’s bullshit. Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

Bucky expected her to make her usual crack about not needing any help, but instead she muffled a yawn in her elbow, got up, and pulled her jacket on. “See you guys later,” she said with a vague wave at him and Steve.

“See you later,” Steve said in amusement as Clint pulled on his own jacket, ushering her out the door and beginning a tirade about why Shane shouldn’t have won and Tommy deserved to win. Steve looked up at Bucky, grinning a little. “They’re _not_ dating,” he mused. “Sure. Okay.”

“They’re absolutely together.” Bucky rolled his eyes, reclaiming his bed finally as Steve got up and moved to his own bed. “I don’t know who they think they’re kidding.”

Steve smiled and shrugged. “I guess maybe they like to keep things like that quiet. That’s not all that weird for Nat. She strikes me as a very private kind of person.” He stretched and smiled at Bucky. “Do you have a good day?”

Bucky looked up at him, still wrapped in Bucky’s sweater, and smiled. “A perfect one.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback are adored!


	5. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of Humans versus Zombies commences, complete with a mission.

“Of course I’ll be there. I already had one of the other nurses take my shift.” Sarah Rogers’ voice smiled over the phone, currently broadcasted on speaker to fill the room while Steve worked on his newest painting. Bucky was in class, which gave him the spread of the entire dorm room to place his projects and paints. He’d set his original piece aside and was working on one made of shades of blues as a back-up in case his first piece didn’t go over well in critique. “It’s your big night.”

“I know you’d _try.”_ Steve gave a laugh. “But you work insanely hard. I didn’t know if they’d let you have the time off, that was the thing. So okay. Cool. How are things at home?”

“Steven.” Her tone was amused. “I’m not moping about the house yearning for you to come home, if that’s what you mean. I’m fine, sweetheart. Just because I live alone doesn’t mean I’m constantly lonely.”

He laughed, grinning at the phone. “I hope not. I don’t like you lonely and sad.” He considered, then, “My roommate is really nice this year.”

“Yeah?” Her voice was smiling. “Good. I’m so relieved. I was stressed all year last year, thinking about you and that _smoker…”_

He nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t do me any favors. No, this one is…” How the hell did he even begin to explain Bucky? “Great. He’s actually helped me through a few attacks. He’s been amazing, I’ve been hanging out with him and his friends, they’ve been great.”

“Good.” Her voice warmed a little. “Why haven’t you talked about him much before? You only ever really talk about your projects or your classes.” A pause, then, “If he and his friends are pressuring you into things you shouldn’t be doing-“

“No, oh my god.” Steve laughed. “Mom, they do drone fights and eat bean dip and watch tattoo shows and shoot each other with Nerf guns.” The very idea that they could be dangerous or pressure him into doing anything he didn’t want to was more than laughable. “No, they’re awesome. I haven’t had a big group of people like this before. It’s really fun. I don’t know why I haven’t talked about Bucky.” Because he was usually there, and Steve was afraid of saying more than he’d meant to. “But he is really awesome, you’ll love him when you meet him.”

“Your friends are coming to the gallery?” There was relief in this, the sharpness of her voice easing up.

“They said they would, yeah.” He swiped another line, then smiled, pleased with that. “Actually, their game is still going, this zombie game called Humans versus Zombies? There’s humans and zombies, and the zombies tag the humans and turn them. If you hit them with a sock or a nerf dart, they’re stunned. It’s a whole thing, it takes like a week and it’s a big deal, and they’re actually stopping one night to come see my gallery.” He still felt a bit guilty about that, but it was their business, and he was honestly glad that they were coming.

She let out a laugh. “That sounds like something children would do! Like what you would do when you were a little boy.”

“Okay, yeah, but they get _really_ into it.” Steve grinned. “And you know… I mean, it’s kind of fun to be like a kid for a minute. Although, Clint mentioned sock cannons and dart grenades, so I’m not sure this would be kid-friendly.”

“Hmm.” She sounded pleased. “I’m happy you’re happy. And making friends. But you need to be careful, sweetheart. You’ll keep your inhaler on you the whole time?”

Steve scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I mean, yeah, but… Bucky carries a spare one for me, apparently. I had no idea.” He still thought about that, about not being able to breathe and Bucky pulling an inhaler out of his pocket, how he’d just had that, how he had taken the extra step no one except Steve’s parents ever had. It made his heart squeeze happily, thinking about it. He didn’t have words, really, to describe how he’d felt when Bucky had pulled the extra inhaler out of his pocket.

“He does?” Instant approval, almost overwhelming, in his mother’s tone.

“Yeah.” Steve laughed, hearing how much his voice warmed without his permission. “Yeah, I had a problem and he just pulled it out of his pocket. He apparently carries one to make sure I’ve got one, on the off-chance I don’t have mine. He’s completely insane.”

“I look forward to meeting him.” There was a softer tone to her voice now. “I have to go, baby. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.” He stood, stretching hard. “I’m about to go out anyway, I need to get some food. Have a good day, okay?”

“Will do. I love you, Steven.” She waited for him to say it back before she hung up, and he smiled down at the phone and shook his head. He worried about her, when he wasn’t there- she worked too hard so often.

He did need to go get some food, though. Steve grabbed his jacket, then hesitated and exchanged it for Bucky’s sweater. He hadn’t had an issue with Steve wearing it, after all, and it was _much_ warmer and more comfortable than anything Steve had.

Plus, it smelled like Bucky.

He was halfway to the Atrium when he saw them-- a man with rounded, red glasses holding a visually-impaired walking-cane aloft and a slightly shorter, chubbier man wrapping it in layer upon layer of foam.

“Matt,” the second man was laughing helplessly as he worked. “Matt. Are you even going to be able to use this to walk around? How are you going to get to class? How are you going to live? You’re not going to make it a single night.”

“Don’t doubt the cane, Foggy. This is going to work.” The glasses-bearing man grinned at the sky. “Those zombies are going down.”

Steve eyed them, then grinned, moving forward to lean on the fence beside them. “So you’re making your cane a melee weapon?” He laughed, the word new to him. Thor had explained that most people used Nerf guns or socks, but any weapon made of foam or covered in foam that you held was called a _melee weapon_ and was also valid for stunning zombies. “Is that even legal?”

“What are they going to do? Say no to the blind guy?” He turned his head, his grin widening as his friend laughed. “Tell me to shoot people with a Nerf gun? Tell me to hold the cane _and_ the sword? Discriminate against my disability? I’m a law student, they’re not going to say a thing.”

Steve grinned. “Well, if that works, it works, I guess. I’m Steve Rogers, I’m with Bucky Barnes’ group.” He watched them in interest. “So your plan is to hit them with your cane and freeze them that way? That’s not a _terrible_ idea.”

“He can whip it around surprisingly quickly,” ‘Foggy’ informed him. “It’s not the worst idea he’s had.”

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Matt informed him, holding his free hand out. “My name’s Matt Murdock, I’m with the Defenders. The Avengers are cool, I’m friends with Clint.”

The Defenders, yeah, Steve knew that name now that he thought about it. Bucky and Clint had argued about allying with the other group earlier in the week while Steve and Nat played a card game with Thor. Bucky had been for it and Clint had argued that they’d go right for the Avengers the second even one became a zombie. “Hello, Defenders.” He shook Matt’s hand and then Foggy’s. “How many people are in your group?”

“Us, Jessica, Luke, and Danny,” Foggy volunteered. “Sometimes Carol hangs out with us, but she’s kind of a solo bird. The Guardians ally with us sometimes, but there’s rumors that Quill is going to be an OZ, so I’d steer clear of him if I were you.”

“Huh.” Steve perched on the bench across from theirs. “I don’t know who those people are yet. They said OZs just look like regular people, they won’t have to wear anything?” People who played HvZ were required to wear headbands, either on their arms if they were a human, or on their foreheads if they were a zombie… with the exception of the four OZ’s, who didn’t have to wear any identifying mark from five pm until midnight on the first night. “So tonight’s night zero? Are you guys ready? My people have been freaking out, they’re excited. I’ve never played.”

“Oh, I’m so ready.” Matt was beaming. 

“Yeah, because _Daredevil_ over here just runs screaming into danger and everyone’s too scared to take down a blind dude, so he’s nearly unstoppable.” Foggy was grinning and Steve burst into laughter at the mental image. “It’s excellent. The mods let me wear foam armor to help shield him, so unless I get tapped on my arms or legs, it doesn’t count.”

“Mods?” Steve blinked, the name usually followed by so much cursing, he hadn’t asked yet.

“The people who make sure we don’t kill each other.” Foggy laughed. “The people who run the game.”

“It’s going to be great,” Matt said confidently, tapping the ground experimentally with his now-covered cane. “This will still work, it’s just a lot bulkier,” he confirmed. “And to answer your question-- yes. OZs don’t have to wear anything, and technically no one knows who it is. There’s always rumors though, from people who are friends with the mods. No one knows if the rumors are fake or not, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Steve nodded, standing. “Okay,” he agreed. “If I see you guys later, I may shoot you. Or attempt to. We’ve been practicing with aim, it’s not _terrible._ So Matt/Daredevil, and Foggy/…?” He grinned at Foggy. “Do you have a codename?”

“No. Well. Technically my name is Franklin, Foggy’s a nickname.” He shrugged cheerfully. “It’s okay. Matt’s aim isn’t great, either.”

Matt chuckled up at the sky, adjusting his glasses. “That’s rude, Foggy.”

“Yeah, well so is you asking out that girl in my Punjabi class. Now I’m taking it for nothing.” He didn’t seem perturbed by this, however, as his smile was still in place. “You’re all right, Steve. If you want to abandon the Avengers, feel free to jump teams. We’re better.”

Steve laughed and shook his head. “We’ll be allies,” he informed him. “Friends even, maybe, but I’ve got my team. Thanks anyway. I’ll see you tonight. Hopefully none of us will be brain-eaters.”

“No promises,” Foggy informed him with a grin, taking Matt’s arm. “We’ll see you tonight. Well. I will.”

“ _Foggy.”_ Matt burst into laughter as Foggy led him away, tapping experimentally with his cane as he went.

“What?” Foggy protested, laughing with him. “You _love_ blind jokes, no one ever makes them with you! Besides, the look on people’s faces- well, you can’t see it, but if you _could,_ you would know that it’s so _funny…”_

“Oh my god.” Steve laughed to himself, shaking his head. He personally couldn’t imagine making blind jokes, but clearly Matt didn’t care, so it was none of his business. Right now he needed to get food and get back to the safety of the dorms before 5 pm.

_**SR:** Just met Matt and Foggy._

_**BB:** That is so much more interesting than my Nutritional Wellness class. Is Matt doing the cane thing this semester? _

_**TS:** How do the Defenders look? Sketchy? Smug? OZ-ish?_

_**SB:** Real sketchy. And yes, the cane thing is a thing. Foggy informs me he is quick with it. They did try to snipe me but I informed them I have been recruited._

_**CB:** The bastards._

_**CB:** I’ve tried to snipe Matt from them for two years now, though, so fair._

_**NR:** Yeah, sniping is well-established. Sometimes there’s even bribes. The Guardians stole Jessica for a night by bribing her with a bottle of whiskey, but she’s so mouthy, they returned her._

_**BB:** You gotta respect that. _

_**SR:** Haven’t yet met her, but I’d imagine that would require quite a lot of mouth. Btw, Matt said that there’s rumors Quill is an OZ, whoever that is. Said he’s a Guardian member?_

_**CB:** Aw shit alright. He dorms in my dorm. _

_**CB:** Stark, I’m crashing with you after class or he’ll be waiting above the door like I did last year._

_**TS:** That sounds like a you problem._

_**TO:** Quill is not as fast as we are._

_**BB:** You’re definitely screwed. Nice knowing you, Hawkeye. We’ll miss your sniping capabilities. You will be missed. RIP._

_**CB:** *plays TAPS* _

_**CB:** Fine you fucks. _

_**CB:** Enjoy me picking you off one by one. _

_**SR:** What if we continued feeding you while indoors?_

_**CB:** Eh. I can be bribed. _

_**CB:** Whiskey works for me too, it’s not just Jess._

Steve laughed, shaking his head.

_**SR:** You realize none of us are legally able to buy alcohol for another year, right?_

_**CB:** Who brought the nerd? i’ve been scoring booze since I was thirteen_

_**TS:** Captain America over here, following all the gov’s rules._

_**BB:** That’s not a bad name._

_**SR:** Okay I’m not that bad, I’m just saying. You know. Laws. Regulations. The inability of us to walk into a liquor store and acquire alcohol._

_**CB:** Alright kiddo, imma take you with me next time and it’ll be cool. _

_**CB:** Okay, are we ready? I’m going to the store to grab some more MD, y’all need anything? _

_**CB:** More foam? _

_**CB:** Booze? _

_**CB:** Magic Markers?_

_**SR:** Duct tape_

_**TS:** For your mouth so you’ll shut the fuck up_

Clint sent back a GIF of someone getting shot with an arrow and Steve grinned and shook his head, putting his phone in his pocket. He needed to get food and get ready.

* * *

“All right.” Bucky handed Steve the Nerf gun. “So you’re not going to run. You have the gun, shoot _anyone_ who comes near you. Do not trust Nat, Clint, Thor, or Tony until tomorrow. Do not let anyone touch you. This is war. I don’t care who it is, keep to yourself and watch your back.” He held up a balled-up sock, wrapped in a strip of velcro, then attached it to the velcro arm-band he’d forced Steve to wear. “If you’re out of ammo or your gun jams, you can throw these.”

Steve’s lips twitched, trying not to smile. Bucky was so concerned. “So I can’t trust our friends. I can only trust you. I cannot run, I’m just going to shoot until I’m out of bullets and then throw socks. And when all _that_ fails, I will become a zombie and eat your brains later?”

“Yes.” Bucky grinned at him. “Look, you’re asthmatic. If you run, you’ll _actually_ die. Come tomorrow, anyone who’s a zombie has to wear this around their forehead.” He held up a neon-green bandana and tied it around Steve’s other arm carefully. “But right now, they don’t have to. So literally anyone out there could be out to kill you. They still have to wear the band on their arm like a human so we know who is and isn’t playing and don’t shoot random students, but _still._ Natasha one hundred percent would come after us all. So would Tony. Or Thor. Or Clint. We have awful friends and they wouldn’t give us a break.”

“This is true,” Steve agreed gravely. He could see all or any of them coming after them. “But tomorrow, they have to reveal that they’re a zombie. Today we just have to walk around and be anxious messes, paranoid and tripping out that everyone is out to get us?” He grinned.

“Yes.” Bucky laughed. “Exactly. Although, there _is_ a mission tonight, so we don’t just get to hole up in here and hide.” He glanced at his watch, nodding a little at the time, and crossed the room to pick up his own bandana.

Steve laughed, shaking his head. “This is the most insane thing. Who even came up with this sadistic game? They’re evil, is what they are.” He hefted his gun. “Did you see the bow Tony made for Clint? He’s got two crossbows and a regular one that snaps open.”

“Yeah. We’re way more geared up this year.” He looked fiercely delighted at that. “ _Last_ year, our rival unit won, the insufferable bastards. I had to look at Rumlow’s smug-ass face all semester.” He picked up a leather jacket Steve had never seen, pulling it on in a smooth motion. It didn’t have a left sleeve, leaving his tattoo bared and visible, and when he turned away to tie the bandana around his skin, Steve could see _The Winter Soldier_ written across the back in sharp silver letters. Steve’s mouth went dry. “If he gets to be the one to turn me again this year, I may actually throttle him,” he continued, picking up an enormous nerf gun and slinging it across his back.

Steve stared, unable to even speak and communicate exactly how attractive his roommate was in this moment. The tattoo, the jacket, the piercings, the hair, the giant Nerf gun… as ridiculous as it was, he had never quite seen anything like it and his fingers almost _burned_ with the need to draw this being before him.

He realized he had been quiet for far too long and gave a quick laugh. “I’ll protect you,” he informed him. “I won’t let you get turned. Clint said he’s working on a trebuchet to launch me over hedges.” He grinned as Bucky shot him a dirty look.

“I’m not even going to protest that,” he informed him. “Because campus would never allow it. They hate us enough as-is.” He laughed again, picking up a hard piece of plastic that, Steve realized belatedly, was a mask that would fit over his roommate’s nose and lips. Bucky put it on, tightening the straps slightly. “It’s Nat’s idea,” he said, voice slightly muffled when he caught Steve looking at him. “She’s all about psyching out the enemy.” He did a self-count, tapping his mask, his armband, his gun, the small roll of ‘grenades’ at his upper thigh.

Steve considered. “I should paint that,” he said, studying it. “It’s too plain. But you’re right- someone like you coming at an enemy would probably do the trick.” He bit back a smile. “Until they found out that you’re a teddy bear who jumps into fights to defend your sick little roommate.”

He still didn’t quite know how to verbalize the way he felt about that, how it made him feel that Bucky had just jumped in without hesitation or thought, and then had immediately switched to helping Steve through an attack. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about precisely how perfectly he fit cuddled back into Bucky’s chest, about how natural and right it had felt with his arms around him. 

“Nah.” Bucky was stretching now, rolling his head to either side and leaning down to touch his toes. “Being protective doesn’t make an animal any less aggressive. It makes most of them more dangerous, to be honest.”

Steve grinned and mimicked his stretches. If Bucky was going to take this so seriously, he wanted to take it seriously as well. “I suppose that’s true,” he allowed. “Lynxes are considered one of the most dangerous animals around here because of their protectiveness over their young. Is it true, by the way, that Thor’s just got a foam hammer? No guns, no distance weapons at all?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Isn’t it dangerous to have zombies that close to you?”

“He’s a melee dude.” Steve suspected Bucky was grinning. “And he took the loss to Hydra _very_ personally. Honestly, I think he’s looking forward to hitting people in the face with it. He practiced on me a few times to make sure it can’t do damage even with a fair amount of strength. He throws it, and there’s a line to it so he can whip it back to him after.”

“Oh my _god.”_ Steve couldn’t stop laughing. “That’s insane. I can’t wait to see what the others look like- I haven’t been able to see their full gear yet, just pieces. Tony said that he’s going to ask if I can get a shield. Not a riot shield, mind you, just…” he made a large-ish circle around one arm. “Sort of like that. Enough to make it harder, but not enough to actually be a problem.”

“That would be _awesome.”_ Bucky’s dark eyes stared at Steve over the rim of the mask, and then he looked around when his phone beeped. He picked it up and nodded. “They’re downstairs. Keep your distance. Normally what we do on night one is set a timer, and then we all just stun each other every ten minutes so if there’s any zombies, they can’t kill us.” He led Steve out.

Steve stared, then started laughing again. “So you’re telling me,” he said between chuckles, “That you all _do_ hang out, but because we can’t guarantee who’s a zombie and who isn’t, you all just set timers and shoot the hell out of each other every ten minutes?” He pressed a hand to his stomach, laughing at the thought of all of them just stopping everything every ten minutes, facing off and shooting at each other like a bad old Western. The idea of Thor whipping his hammer at people was especially funny. “What did I get myself into? How do you know _I’m_ not a zombie?”

“Well, I’m definitely not just avoiding you for a whole week.” Bucky’s laugh was warm, even muffled as it was, and Steve’s stomach lurched and twisted pleasurably. “So I suppose there are worse ways to die, and I’ll just go after Rumlow and Hydra with a fervor as a zombie.”

Steve grinned at the ceiling. “You’re an idiot,” he informed him. “I promise I’m not a zombie. But I supposed if I get turned, I could be your guys’ pet zombie and you could just stun me every ten minutes we’re outside.”

“Mm. That’s not a bad idea.” Bucky pushed the door open, leading Steve outside, and he raised an eyebrow as he eyed the group assembled under the trees and suddenly felt _very_ underdressed for the occasion.

Thor was dressed in a sleeveless gray shirt, a red hoodie tied around his shoulders so it hung off his back almost like a cape. He spun the aforementioned foam hammer in one hand, grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet, long hair swept back away from his face. Clint wore a purple shirt and had a _quiver,_ of all things, on his back, with arrow-Nerf darts for the bow he had slung over one shoulder and an entire belt of crossbow darts for the crossbows hanging from both hips. He also had a dark arm-guard on one arm, the back of it covered with velcro-coated socks.

Nat was in a tight-fitting black jacket, black leggings, and her usual boots. She aimed a small nerf gun at them as they approached and shot each easily. It was a little surprising, the small sting of the dart. Steve had never played with Nerf as a kid, he hadn’t known there was actually a kick to them. Tony bumped his knuckles against hers in praise for the action, dressed simply in a dark t-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt had a circular symbol on the front, detailed and intricate, and when he turned to mutter something to Thor, Steve saw _I Am Ironman_ scrawled across the back of the t-shirt.

“I need to get a better outfit,” Steve informed Bucky as they moved closer, picking up the darts and returning them to Nat. “Thor, it looks like you’ve got a cape. I like it. Tony, is Ironman your codename?” He grinned. “Do you all have codenames?”

“Yeah.” Tony laughed. “It just kind of happened, you don’t actually need them. We got a bit of a name for ourselves in the last couple games. We’ll find one for you, don’t worry.” He winked at Steve and Nat took the darts back, studying Steve’s face intently.

“He’s not an OZ,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s not a good enough liar to hide it.”

Steve laughed. “You’re right,” he admitted. He was a well-established terrible liar. “I’m not an OZ. Bucky reminded me to trust no one.”

“That’s smart.” Tony grinned and glanced at Bucky. “See, we definitely can’t trust you, Buckaroo. You could be smiling behind the mask, plotting our demise, and we’d never know. I’ll be shooting you a little extra today.”

“Uh-huh. You’re just looking for an excuse,” Bucky snorted. “Nat, where’s the mission?”

“We’re supposed to go to West Quad, pick up one of the eight packages, and deliver it to the arena.” She glanced down at her phone as she recited the instructions. “So there’s eight official teams at the start this year, that’s cute.” She glanced at Steve as the group began walking. “The teams fall apart pretty fast as the members get turned, but it’s fun to start off with.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiled. “I can imagine it’s an issue if half of them are zombies and trying to kill you.”

“Yeah. Eventually more members of the team get turned though, and then they work together to create ambushes.” 

“So Avengers, Guardians, Defenders, Hydra, Chitauri, X-Men, Sinister Six, and… a new one?” Tony glanced over at her and she nodded. “Huh. Cool.”

Nat glanced at Steve’s face, then smiled. “You’re going to do well. Don’t worry about it.”

He shook his head. “I will die very quickly, but I will try my best to go down in a blaze of glory and do you all proud.”

“Hey.” She poked him in the nose with a gun. “It’s not over until it’s over. I don’t want to hear any of that quitter talk. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a salute, hiding a grin. “I will win this and stand alone against the zombie horde.”

“Better,” Tony agreed as she nodded. An alternate group passed them, dressed all in dark colors, and Steve hefted his gun as he felt the tension rise. One of the guys started walking backwards, grinning at them from across the street. 

“Lookin’ good, Winter. Ready to give me your feed code?”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Bucky muttered under his breath, then, “Big words from a screamer, Rumlow!”

“Like mother, like son!” Clint shouted with a laugh, shooting a crossbow bolt through traffic. It hit home, sticking in the middle of the other boy’s forehead. Rumlow snatched it off, taking a step forward, and his team laughed, pushing him around playfully enough that he shook off the tension in his shoulders.

“What would you know about mothers, Barton? You and Barnes have that in common! Oh, wait- Barnes’ mom-”

“Go this way,” Tony ordered, seeming to feel the need to separate them as Bucky turned sharply, just barely caught by Thor’s hands as Natasha grabbed Clint. Steve took two rapid steps that way, feeling a snarl rise, and Tony turned him away and pushed him in another direction as Steve tried to turn back. “Nope. Let’s go, Rogers. Enough of the angry Chihuahua today.” Tony redirected their group to the right, away from the sidewalk and across the quad. “Walk it off, guys. We’re all humans right now. They’re dicks, but that doesn’t mean it can devolve into a fist fight again.”

“I’ll kill him,” Steve assured Bucky, trying to smile past the rolling anger that snarled his stomach into knots. He didn’t know what exactly the jab about Bucky’s mother was supposed to be, but it didn’t matter. He’d insulted two of Steve’s teammates, he was going to go down. They’d wreck him in this game, and then Steve would find some other way to make him pay, too.

“No,” Tony disagreed sharply. “No fighting during the game, guys, we’ll get banned. We were lucky not to get kicked out last time.” He looked at Steve. “Rumlow made fun of Clint, Bucky threw a punch, and it broke down into an all-out brawl that the mods caught us in the middle of. We got reamed out for hours,” he remarked a little more casually. “Almost got life-banned from the game. Which is why we have to beat them _clean_ this year. That means Bucky, stay away from Rumlow. Clint, ignore him. Steve, I’m watching you, too. You’ve got a temper.” He let out a laugh, grinning back at him as some of his tension dissipated.

Clint was rubbing at his arm, nodding and looking away. Bucky remained tense, shoulders rigid, but said nothing to Tony, just pulled himself free of Thor’s hold. “I’m fine,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Steve looked up at him, searching his face. “I can jump him later.”

“No, he’s just an asshole.” Bucky shook his head, curling his hands around the nerf rifle in his hands. 

“I mean, yeah.” Steve shrugged. “So let’s destroy him in the game, and maybe accidentally hit him with a car or a drone later.”

“Hey, that’s not a terrible idea,” Clint agreed with a snort.

“Runner on the left,” Natasha said sharply, and Thor threw his hammer just in time to hit a girl who was sprinting up and reaching for Tony’s shoulder. She skidded to a stop, sighing good-naturedly.

“Next time, Stark,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Hey, Bucky.”

“Carol. You’re an OZ?” Bucky’s voice was pleased behind his mask. “Good for you. Hydra’s across the street, you know.”

“Huh.” She grinned. “Maybe I’ll catch them next.” She turned, heading off into the darkness as she set a timer on her phone, and Nat nodded. 

“Make sure we’re watching. Let’s go grab the package.”

* * *

The mission went smoothly from then on.

The team stayed close together and was able to fend off Carol and three or four others on their trek to the arena. A couple of the others were wearing their neon bandanas atop their heads, so clearly the OZs had already claimed a few victims. Steve didn’t recognize any of the zombies, and he was kept firmly in the middle of their cluster of friends where he wouldn’t easily be tagged.

The paranoia was surprisingly real, and Steve very quickly realized why HvZ was one of the first things he had heard about with his friend group. There was just something about it. He wasn’t just Steve, he was an Avenger. He was working as a team toward a goal, and that place and position was very definite and clear. He’d never had a team before, and he found that it was exhilarating, incredible. It felt like it was what he should be doing- protecting his friends, fighting and lobbing sock grenades at zombies and humans alike. He felt nothing but excitement and determination to do this _right,_ to make them proud to have him along.

There was a sense of constant heightened awareness. At any moment, people could come sprinting out of the shadows, people could grab them from bushes or trees. Because not all of campus played, however, they couldn’t simply avoid _everyone._ There were plenty of students wandering around who had nothing to do with the game, but that didn’t mean that one of those students couldn’t be an OZ, so it was impossible to trust _anything._ Any moment could be ‘life or death,’ and it was as adrenaline-inducing as it was funny.

Because while on one hand, this was a game of tag with socks and Nerf weapons… it felt surprisingly _real_ in the moment.

They _did_ in fact run into the Defenders, and every weapon was immediately up and aimed at the other group. “Could they all be zombies?” Steve asked Bucky in an undertone as Bucky aimed his rifle at a dark-haired girl who had a nerf pistol on her hip and a sort of foam glove wrap on each hand.

“Sometimes teams keep pet OZs,” he replied, winking at the girl, who eyed him distrustfully, but her lips quirked slightly. Steve blinked, then felt a small tug as he realized that she was wearing the gray scarf Bucky had been wearing earlier in the week, recognizable immediately by the small splash of blue paint on one end. Was this his girlfriend? His “friend?” She was very pretty, striking in a similar way that Nat was- a fierce and hard kind of beauty he itched to draw.

“Hey, Clint!” Matt Murdock waved his cane toward them cheerfully. He was taller than Foggy and stood behind him, using him almost like a human shield with his cane out on one side to swat away any incoming threats. “How are the Avengers doing?”

“Hey, you blind bastard.” Clint grinned. “We’re doing great. Doesn’t look like you’re doing any worse.”

“Haven’t lost anyone yet,” Natasha confirmed, sizing them up as she moved sideways, toward the pile of packages to their left. Bucky moved with her, turning his back to the Defenders in order to aim into the darkness around them. “Danny,” she noted as she picked up one of the boxes, “That’s a… bold choice.”

The blonde man she had been eyeing grinned at her, bumping the two enormous foam fingers on his hand together. “I’m the Iron Fist.”

“Think you’re the Iron Finger, bud.” Tony snorted.

“Yeah, they were sold out of the giant foam fists. Next time, though.” He raised the fingers threateningly. “They still have a pretty good reach. Same basic principle.”

“Luke,” Thor greeted the last man, an extremely tall and muscular African American guy, from over their heads. “The world cannot take this much handsome in one place, my friend.”

Luke winked. “We could go on tour, flexing for women all over the world.”

The dark-haired girl wearing Bucky’s scarf rolled her eyes as Clint trotted over, shooting Foggy and Matt and engaging them in conversation. “You’re all insane,” the girl informed them. “And we're late for our mission. Where’s yours? We could use meat shields.”

“We’re supposed to drop ours off at the arena. Do you guys have a different drop-off location?” Nat grabbed a second box and passed it to Bucky, who held it out to the girl. 

She moved forward and shot him at point-blank range, then grinned. “Just in case. You Avengers are known to keep pet zombies.” She took the box. “It’s kind of dumb of them to put all the packages in the same place. If the OZ’s knew, this is a perfect place for a trap or ambush.”

“Like the Cornucopia from _Hunger Games,”_ Clint agreed wisely, punching Matt’s arm. The girl looked at him. “What?” He asked defensively. “I read.”

Steve grinned. “A book about an archer. You chose an aesthetic and stuck with it, huh?”

“Matt, back me up. You listened to _Hunger Games._ Nat, you read it with me. It’s a great piece of literature,” Clint informed the group at large, and Luke rolled his eyes with a smile.

“That’s probably the point,” Natasha reasoned. “They’re probably _trying_ to get us all ambushed. Where is your drop-off?”

“The library,” Foggy volunteered, and the ten-minute timer went off. Everyone shot each other, then picked up their darts, and the two groups headed off together. They split up once they got to the main road, with the Defenders heading toward the library and the Avengers continuing North toward the arena. There was shouting and the soft _thumpthimp_ of Nerf darts coming from a crowd near the bell tower, so they gave that a wide berth and continued along an alternate route.

“Steve,” Bucky said, glancing down at him, “How’re your lungs doing? It’s getting a little colder, you okay?”

He nodded, feeling a happy twinge that Bucky knew that cold affected asthmatics that way. “Yeah, I’m okay. We’re not running or anything.” Tomorrow he’d wear another layer. He wasn’t strained or anything yet, but it was a good idea to stay warm anyway.

From their left, they heard “ _Starlord attacks!”_ and screaming. Steve laughed. “Who the hell is that?”

Clint nocked two arrows, eyeing that direction. “That asshole Quill. Let’s hope he doesn’t come this way.”

“Wow, he really did get to be an OZ.” Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“Or he immediately sacrificed himself so he could play for the other side,” Nat pointed out dryly.

“I like Quill,” Thor mused, and Natasha rolled her eyes, keeping them moving a little faster and further from the group. In only minutes, they had neared the arena. Nat passed the box to Tony as they approached, and Steve paused as he realized something.

“Wait. Tony, do you not have any weapons on you?”

“I am a weapon,” he informed Steve with a completely-straight face.

“He uses sock grenades and throws darts with his bare hands,” Bucky informed Steve. “He claims that carrying a gun just distracts him and gives it a chance to jam, while his own hands will never fail him.”

“I’m not wrong, either,” Tony stated confidently.

“Tony, you’re the first to die every semester,” Thor said with a heavy sigh. “And then we have to just shoot you every ten minutes until enough of us get turned that we end up splitting.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head, and looked up at Bucky. So they didn’t just abandon their teammates when one became zombified- they often stayed together. That was… actually, really cool. “The Defenders are cool,” he said. “Do we usually ally with them?” Someone ran at them screeching and got pummeled with five darts and a hammer. They laughed and moved away, lifting their phone to set a timer.

“Pretty much,” Bucky confirmed. “They’re good people. It’s funny, the way everything ends up connecting. Thor and Luke work out at the gym together, Clint and Matt are friends, I know Jessica, Nat survives Danny in some of her psych classes… And then we all ended up in the game together.”

“Huh.” Steve considered, thinking back to the girl, Jessica, wearing Bucky’s scarf. “They seem like good people.”

“Usually, the zombie Avengers/Defenders group up and come after the human ones,” Thor informed him. “It is best that way, for the battles. We sometimes team up with the Guardians and do something similar too, when there are enough of them. The others mix and match sometimes.”

“Except Tony can’t stand the Guardians,” Bucky added with a grin, and they slowed down as they approached a man in white sitting on the arena steps.

“Hey, Avengers,” the mod greeted them. 

“Hey, Coulson.” Tony nodded and held out the box. “How many teams have got back?”

“Six now. Kree are struggling to find the location, I think the Guardians might have hid theirs somewhere, and two of the OZs tried to ambush the Chitauri together, so that chaos is going down over by the bell tower.” Coulson chuckled. Steve nodded. That explained the shooting and yelling by the tower, then.

“Kree’s the new group?” Nat asked in interest, and Coulson nodded.

“All right. So as a reward for your successful delivery of the package, we have victory spoils for you.”

“Yes,” Thor half-whispered behind him. Steve high-fived Bucky.

“As a reward, you are getting smores.”

“Smores?” Bucky asked, starting to laugh. Coulson smiled at him.

“Smores,” he confirmed. “Obviously, we can’t give you an actual fire. So you get graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and,” here he withdrew a handful of cigarette lighters from his pocket, and Bucky laughed harder, holding onto Steve’s shoulder for balance. His laugh was infectious and Steve started laughing too, grabbing his arm for balance.

“You just want us to hold the marshmallow on top of the flame?” Clint joined in the laughing. “Oh my god we're all going to burn our hands off.”

The mod had no defense against this, so they left. Steve and Clint divvied up the supplies while the others kept watch. They walked back to the dorms together so that they had protection in numbers, dropping Thor off first, then Clint, then Steve and Bucky.

“You guys going to be all right getting back off campus alone?” Bucky paused in the doorway, his mask dangling from one ear.

“Yeah.” Natasha was busy melting her marshmallow with her lighter, letting Tony watch her back as she wedged it between two graham crackers. “We’re fast. If not, guess we’ll be taking you down tomorrow.” She grinned and Steve laughed.

“If you guys are both zombies, I have no idea how we’re going to make it, so definitely don’t get yourselves turned.”

She laughed. “Give yourselves a little credit, Rogers. We’ll catch up with you later.” She put the lighter away and began to eat the smore as she accompanied Tony away from the dorms, Tony’s hand curled lightly around the handful of darts in his hand and his head busy swiveling for threats. Bucky watched them go, not moving inside yet, then smiled down at Steve.

“What did you think?”

“It was awesome.” He lit. “There’s so much stuff going on, it’s crazy. I actually hit a few people, which was exciting. I’m a lot better with my aim than I thought I’d be.”

“We should have practiced more,” Bucky agreed, his grin crooked and soft, his bared arm braced up against the doorframe as he looked down at Steve. “I’ve just been so distracted with teaching you to fight and watching you do your art stuff, I didn’t even think about it. You did well, though. Didn’t get tagged once.”

Steve grinned up at him, a little breathless in that nice way that wasn’t his lungs seizing up, but just what Bucky did to him. He was just so beautiful, so strong and gorgeous and when he smiled like that at Steve, so close, it made something in Steve’s chest seize in a very good way. “Always the tone of surprise. It’s cool, I figured I’d get tagged today too, what with the no-running rule.” He considered Clint’s method of climbing up into trees and sniping far-away targets. “There are other ways that could be fun, but I think I like hand-to-hand best.”

“Course you do.” Bucky laughed and dropped his arm, slinging it across Steve’s shoulders for a moment as he directed them inside. “You’re scrappy.”

“I am scrappy,” Steve agreed, pleased. “And I’ve got my team, and they’re scrappy too. I think we’re probably going to be fine.”

“For at least a while,” Bucky agreed cheerfully. “Eventually so many people will be turned that it’ll be a moot point, we’ll have to die. But it’ll be a good death, and maybe we’ll hold out for a while.” He released him in order to unlock their door and lead him in, pulling his gear off with a contented sigh. “It’s going to be a good week. And then on Tuesday we have your gallery. I’m looking forward to that.”

“Yeah?” Steve looked up at him quickly. “It’s just a bunch of drawings, you realize that, right? It’s not anything fancy. There’s some sculpture but not a lot, and none of it’s mine, my stuff is just drawings.”

“Yeah, if it was just sculpture that you didn’t do, I wouldn’t be going.” He rolled his eyes. “I go to see _your_ stuff, punk. Not anyone else’s. Course, that girl who sits next to you had an interesting piece, I wouldn’t mind seeing it finished.” He stretched.

“Wanda’s amazing,” he agreed fervently. “Her stuff is incredible. She’s been taking lessons for a long time. She’s been doing crazy stuff, actually. I’m excited to see what she finishes doing too; she’s been keeping it quiet.”

Bucky nodded and grabbed a towel. “I’m going to hit the showers. Sleep well, if you’re down before I get back.” And then he was gone, leaving Steve alone. 

Steve sat on the bed, looking at his Nerf gun and laughing, shaking his head. He was so unbelievably lucky that he had managed to room with Bucky and have this kind of friend group. He couldn’t imagine how his last year had been without them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day late! Life got in the way. Comments and feedback are loved!


	6. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another night of zombie-hunting! We find out what Bucky does on his time off and Steve gives him some much-needed validation.

“What do you think of that?” Danielle stepped back, tilting her head at the bookshelf.

“Think that looks nice,” Bucky agreed, wrapping an arm around Rahne and pressing his lips to her temple. Rahne snapped the picture and he released her so that she could cross the room and grab a different t-shirt from the dresser. Bucky turned his back to her so she could get changed in privacy, instead focusing on Danielle’s progress. “Do you really read all these?”

“Yeah.” She glanced at him in surprise. “What, you don’t read?”

“Nah. Nothing wrong with it, I just get busy with everything else. I can’t imagine having enough time to get through all these.” He studied the titles crammed into the bookshelf.

“Well, if you weren’t running around getting shot by Nerf darts at night…” she turned away with a smile to study the books. “Do you think they should be alphabetized?”

“Oh my god, Dani.” Rahne laughed, moving close and kissing her girlfriend’s cheek. “You already organized them by size and color, that’s all going to be ruined if you alphabetize them. And then that’ll bug you and you’ll end up putting them back.”

She crossed back to Bucky, who shrugged off his jacket and moved so that she could settle into his lap. She stayed there for a moment, staring at the ground. “I hate this,” she muttered, and Bucky hesitated a moment before winding his arms around her, hugging her.

“It’s not something you  _ have _ to do,” he reminded her quietly. “If it bothers you, or if I’m doing something-”

“No,” she assured him quickly. “No, come on. You’re great, Bucky. I’m so grateful you’re willing to do this, we both are.”

“Word,” Danielle said, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the bookshelves. Bucky snorted at the slang, then focused on Rahne again.

“You come out at your pace and when you feel safe,” he told her, shaking his head. “And until then, I’m here for you both. Don’t rush it, just do it when you’re ready. I know it sucks.”

“It would suck more without you,” Rahne said on a sigh, and Bucky took her phone, considering for a moment before tilting her backwards and tickling her ribs. She let out a shout of laughter and Bucky grinned at the camera, snapping a few pictures quickly. Then he stopped, pulling his arms back quickly so that she could move again. She sat on the floor, still giggling a little, and Dani took her hand, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. 

“It looked cute,” she told her warmly, and Rahne smiled up at her.

“You look cute. I like that flannel.”

“Thanks!” She brightened and Bucky laughed.

“You can keep it,” he assured her. “So that’s four outfits with Rahne and three with Dani, photos in all, and a Snapchat story for Danielle. Anything else we want to get?”

“My family doesn’t use Snap, so I’m good,” Rahne assured him.

“You know, for a clean-shaven guy, you’re a really good beard,” Danielle informed him, and he grinned as he got up.

“Uh-huh. That’s the life of a bachelor, you know. Juggling six girlfriends at once is my every day.”

“Oh, yeah. You’re a real ladies man.” Dani grinned, hugging Rahne into her side, then, “Thanks, Bucky. Really. We appreciate it so much. If my parents knew that I’m dating my roommate, it would  _ not _ go over well. They’d come up, they’d make a scene, it would be a nightmare.”

“My dad might even fly over from Scotland,” Rahne agreed grimly. “What a nightmare.”

“I’m here as long as you need me,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “And if they ever  _ do _ come up, call me. I’ll be there if you want me to make sure nothing too extreme happens. I’ve got no problems punching middle-aged assholes out.” He mimed a boxing position and Rahne laughed, throwing a bag of chips at him.

“You are not going to punch out someone’s parents.”

He caught the bag and opened it, eating a chip happily. Danielle eyed him, taking in the Nerf rifle that he was slinging across his back. “So your zombie game is going good?”

“Going great,” he agreed enthusiastically, remembering the way Steve had smiled and laughed the night before. He had to assume that he was still human, considering he hasn’t gotten any  _ RIP I got killed _ texts. Of course, he could be waiting to try to ambush him… 

Rahne tilted her head, looking almost scarily like her girlfriend for a moment as she examined him. “You have a crush on someone,” she hazarded, and Bucky frowned.

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Come on, you’re a dude.” Danielle opened a bag of her own chips. “It’s not like you hide your emotions.”

“Okay, so I’m in love with him, is that so wrong?” he laughed, popping another chip into his mouth. “He’s my roommate though,” he added, covering his mouth with a hand as he ate.

“Ooh, yeah.” Rahne made a face. “That can go either way. We got together before we roomed together, but I’ve heard of a lot of couples who break up and then they can’t get out of the dorm arrangement after.”

“You’re telling me,” Bucky agreed dryly. He wasn’t about to share the smaller details with them. Danielle was comfortable with being gay, she just wasn’t ready for her parents to know. Rahne struggled with being gay in the first place, though she was very happy with Dani and they’d been dating over six months now. She was the daughter of a pastor. He got the kind of anxiety that could cause, and she was making progress at her own pace with being comfortable and coming out.

He was unbelievably proud of her.

And because of all of that, the last thing she needed was for him to unload the internalized homophobia and panic that his father and brother had instilled in him. On one hand, she would  _ get it _ . She struggled with the exact same concept, the same sort of fears that it was somehow dirty or wrong. It did differ somewhat-- she brought that fear against herself, a fear of  _ being _ dirty and wrong rather than his own sense of being comfortable being that way but not wanting to sully his partner. The fear, however, had the same origin of parental homophobia and prejudice.

His girls didn’t need to know. They needed him to be the out and proud man he considered himself to be most of the time. They didn’t need to know what he had become while dating Brock. They didn’t need to know the panic that sometimes rose when he got too close to Steve. They needed to know that he was steady, that he would be there for them, that he was okay. They needed to know that you could be gay and happy at the same time.

And Bucky  _ was _ , he reminded himself fiercely. He  _ was _ happy. There was nothing wrong with what he was. He liked who and what he was. The statement sounded real today. There was nothing wrong with him. If he were to ever kiss Steve, there would be nothing wrong with that. He was not Brock Rumlow, he was not what his father had said about homosexuals throughout his childhood. He was Bucky Barnes. He was human, and happy, and there was nothing wrong with him or with being with Steve.

And that was all his girls needed to know. He was there to help  _ them _ , not the other way around.

“Have you kissed him yet?” Rahne asked, bringing Bucky’s attention back to the girls sitting cuddled-up on the floor.

“No,” he admitted. “He’s been my roommate since term started and we’re together all the time, though. He’s… I don’t know. He’s becoming my best friend. He’s brave, and smart, and funny. He’s got no sense of self-preservation and this insane temper. He’s so beautiful.”

“Ooh, pics.” Danielle sat forward and Bucky laughed, pulling his phone out and finding a picture he’d taken of Steve while painting, all mess and focus. Dani wrinkled her nose. “Oh, he’s so  _ cute _ .”

“You pronounced ‘perfect’ wrong, dollbaby.” He snorted, letting Rahne see the picture.

“Perfect might be a stretch,” she observed, “But I definitely see the appeal. Do you think you’ll be able to hold out until you’re not rooming together?”

“Oh, god no.” Bucky grimaced as he pocketed his phone again. “There’s no way. I die a little more every day. He’s taken to wearing my hoodie, and I think I’m literally going to jump off the Teacher’s College because it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever had to look at in my life. I want to just  _ grab him _ and that’s obviously not the right choice.”

“Maybe,” Danielle agreed. “Does he like you?”

Bucky hesitated, thinking back to the moments throughout the last month where Steve had focused on him. “I… think so. But he’s led a sheltered life. It’s hard to know for sure if he’s like that because he’s interested, or if he just thinks I’m really cool and doesn’t know how to take it when a guy flirts with him.” He ate another chip.

“Is he gay?” Rahne dug around in her bag for a perfect chip and Bucky sighed.

“I have no idea.”

“Huh. Then don’t just kiss him, that could go over  _ terribly _ .” Danielle pointed at him and he looked at the ceiling.

“Thanks. That’s so helpful.”

“We try.” Danielle winked at him and he felt himself smile, some of the tension in his chest easing. When he’d met them, he’d known immediately that they would be perfect for each other. They’d both come so far in the seven months he’d been working with them like this.

“Yeah. You do. Will you tie my bandana back?” He crouched beside them, holding out the neon bandana he’d removed for the pictures, and Danielle took it, tying it around his upper arm quickly.

“Doesn’t having just one sleeve leave your other arm cold?” Rahne queried.

“Very,” he confirmed seriously, and she laughed.

“All right. Get out and kill some zombies.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted and headed out of the dorm, ignoring the glances that he got as a guy walking out of a girls-only dorm. Sure, friends visited all the time, but for some reason, everyone who looked at him  _ always _ assumed that he was as much of a man-whore as Thor. He’d never really understood why… Of course, the fact that 90% of people assumed he was straight helped out a lot in this ‘job.’

He glanced at his watch. He’d already finished class for the day before he’d gone to see Rahne and Dani, and the mission tonight didn’t start until five. He had some time to kill. He considered, glancing down at his outfit, then redirected his path toward the arena. He’d use the punching bags in the gym and work on his form a little.

* * *

“Okay. So we’re all here. Now what?” Natasha looked at Steve curiously. He’d asked them to gather in their gear early before the mission, and they were settled under a tree by the dorm. It wasn’t too risky of a move to be outside being that the game was still so young, and all zombies now had to be banded, so they felt relatively secure. Tony was struggling to juggle his sock grenades, but was doing terribly. Bucky decided to ignore the way Steve was laughing at that as well as the way Tony was grinning at him.

It didn’t matter, he reminded himself firmly. Steve was becoming his best friend, and yes, he was possibly his soulmate, but he needed to be patient and take things slow. Tony laughed at Steve, giving a slow and obvious wink that had Steve turning pink, and Bucky adjusted his plan immediately. He was going to talk to Tony. He was definitely going to talk to Tony. If Tony started dating Steve, Bucky would have to just walk straight into traffic. Or push Tony into it. Either way.

“Okay.” Steve gave the group at large a nervous little grin. “So I’m just making notes on your gear, but if you  _ could,  _ and you were fighting real zombies, what else would you want? I’m going to sketch you guys out properly in a minute.”

“A bigger hammer,” Thor said immediately. “Like think Mjolnir from the myths.”

“Way to lean into the stereotype, buddy.” Bucky grinned at him. 

“Hey, if you’ve got the name, you’ve gotta own it,” Thor informed him.

Bucky laughed, settling onto the ground. “Really cool sniper rifle,” he added thoughtfully to Steve.

“Okay.” Steve’s pen moved rapidly. “Clint?”

“A real bow, not a big one but a cool one. And a quiver. Keep the arm guard.” Clint considered. “And sunglasses. Purple ones.”

Steve snorted. “Tony?”

“I want a suit of armor.” Tony considered. “But like a cool one. I’ve actually designed it, I’ll let you see the look sometime.”

Steve laughed. “Of course you did. Good god. Okay, Nat?” He gave her a smile.

“Handguns. And make me look cool.” She leaned back against the tree, ankle hooked around Clint’s.  _ Are they even trying to pretend they’re not together anymore? _ Bucky thought, amused.

Clint snorted, immediately adjusting to fit better into the hold around her ankle. It almost looked like he hadn’t realized he was doing it. “As if you could  _ not  _ look cool,” he scoffed. She kicked at his shin lightly, playfully, and Steve nodded.

“He’s right. But cool.” He examined his paper, satisfied, and sat, turning the page to start his sketch. “Don’t worry about posing,” he said mildly. “I’ll figure that out later, I just want your gear.”

They slowly fell into conversation, Clint and Natasha arguing with Tony about his plans for some new invention while Thor debated with Bucky how their next boxing matches would go. They didn’t have anything this week, which was a happy coincidence, but Thor still missed it.

“We could always go a few rounds,” Bucky volunteered thoughtfully. “It might be fun to let loose.” Thor was one of few people who could really hold his own against Bucky, Thor’s brawn enough to withstand and match against Bucky’s ferocity. Whenever they finished sparring, both were covered in bruises.

“Do you guys fight each other often?” Steve asked in interest. “I haven’t seen you boxing each other yet.”

“Not a ton, we’re pretty different styles.” Bucky smiled at him, resting his elbows on his knees. “Nat and I are a little better suited than Thor and I.”

“Two on one is really fun,” Natasha volunteered thoughtfully. Tony glanced at them, curious.

“So, wait. Who’s the strongest?”

The three paused and looked at each other for a moment. Clint looked around from where he’d been fiddling with a rope, watching them, and Steve lowered his pencil curiously. “Thor can lift the most,” Natasha said slowly. “I’m faster. James is maybe the most naturally talented.”

“Hey, thanks.” Bucky grinned a little.

“Okay, but me being able to lift the most makes me the strongest,” Thor offered.

“We’re pretty evenly matched, honestly.” Bucky shrugged. “Thor and I vary with who wins each time, it’s almost fifty-fifty.”

“Do you ever fight Nat?” Steve grinned a little.

“ _ I  _ fight Nat,” Clint offered. “It’s mostly an excuse to get thrown around by a beautiful woman but on occasion I get a hit in.”

“Nat and I are almost always a stalemate,” Bucky offered with a chuckle. “Sometimes I win. Sometimes she does. Most of the time we end up tired and bloody.”

“Yeah, because you’re a maniac,” Nat pointed out, stretching her legs out. “The fact that your dad taught you to fight like  _ that _ is absolutely insane, even by my standards.”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky shrugged a little. “What are you going to do?”

He got what she meant. That feral, odd sort of zone that he dropped into wasn’t normal. The degree of  _ almost _ dissociation wasn’t normal. People should be more aware of who they were fighting, they should be more conscious of their actions, rather than allowing and encouraging their body to fall into that strange, weapon-like state.

He glanced up to see Steve watching him. His roommate considered, then gave a smile and stretched out his legs in front of him, resting his sketchbook on his thighs, and scooted slightly so the sole of his sneaker was resting flat against the sole of Bucky’s boot. “I wouldn’t mind watching you guys box more,” he said agreeably. “I could pick up some tips.” He grinned at the paper.

“Did you miss you getting your ass beat the other day?” Bucky asked him, watching him in amusement as he flexed his foot a little, pressing against Steve’s.

“Precisely.” Steve pointed his pen at him, giving him a grin. “So at some point, if I pick up enough, I will no longer get my ass beat. I should just absorb Nat’s speed.” His foot pressed back. “So when you say really cool sniper rifle, like, do you have a particular design or model?”

“Nah.” Bucky smiled at him. “I could name one, probably. My old man’s a gun nut. But I don’t really care one way or another, just something aesthetically pleasing.”

“Cool.” A slight pink tinge washed across his cheekbones and he focused on the paper again. Bucky listened to Clint and Tony arguing about the design of some new weapon, to Nat and Thor setting up a few times to box, watched Steve drawing all of them with a contented smile, his foot pressed against Bucky’s.

Things were so solid. So steady. Even if things never changed with Steve, even if he just stayed his friend and never got to know what it was like to hold him or kiss him… this would be good. If this moment, surrounded by his friends and their laughter, could just be sustained forever, if it could be bottled, if it could continue on uninterrupted for the rest of time… He’d be perfectly and wholly happy.

Steve ended up taking photos as well, having strangers take the phone to do group shots and then taking his phone back to do individual shots. It was fun. They did shots where they were focused and ‘fighting,’ and then sillier shots, such as one where Clint was hanging from the tree or another where Thor threw Nat up into the air to shoot at Steve’s phone while aloft. They spent an entire hour taking photos and letting Steve sketch them, and it was more fun than Bucky could have imagined. He didn’t think he stopped smiling all afternoon.

When it was time for the mission, Tony summoned them closer. “All right,” he read off the email on his phone. “So the mission tonight is to go to the Student Center. There are three ‘captives’ who we have to escort all the way to Johnson Hall. If a zombie gets them, we lose. If a zombie gets us, we lose.” He laughed.

“They’ve got  _ captives.”  _ Clint snorted. “Cool, alright. We have to escort all three? Maybe we should gather some of the others, we’ve got a better chance. Do we know how the Defenders and Guardians are doing?”

“Haven’t heard,” Tony disagreed. “Being that Quill was an OZ, I imagine that the Guardians are in tatters.”

“Nah. No way Gamora and Drax are down, I don’t buy it.” Natasha shook her head. “Rocket, maybe.”

“Rocket, absolutely,” Tony scoffed.

“The Defenders might be okay, though,” Bucky pointed out.

“You haven’t heard from Jessica?” Steve looked up at him, surprised, and Bucky blinked down at him in confusion.

“Ah, no. We don’t talk much, really,” Bucky said with a shrug. “I see her about once a week, max. Plus, she’d never tell me if she was turned. She’d want to take me down.”

Steve let out a laugh. “I guess that makes sense,” he agreed, and Clint put his phone away.

“Well, Matt might be lying but he said they’d wait in Ashtray for us if we moved our asses, said they’re all still alive.  _ Did  _ say, though, that Carol’s around, so watch that.” He looked at Tony. “I can do recon, I brought the rope. Just to make sure.”

“You brought the  _ rope? _ ” Bucky queried with a frown.

Clint grinned and whipped out a rope from his pocket. “It’s my new toy.”  _ Not my fault you were too busy staring at the second-hottest blonde here,  _ he signed with a smirk. “You know how I go bouldering? Well, I climb the trees, but Tony and I were talking about scaling the buildings. I’m going to try it. It’s going to be awesome.”

_ Okay, Steve is more attractive than you or Thor by far _ , Bucky signed back, rolling his eyes. “Clint, what if you fall off the building?” he asked aloud. “That seems like a bad idea, even for you.”

He shook his head. “Second-floor only until I get better, I promised Tony. You’ve  _ thrown  _ me off the second floor.” He grinned. “And shut up, you’re biased, loser. I’ll be back, watch your asses.” He threw the rope up around a railing and disappeared up the building.

Steve sighed happily. “This game is so cool,” he said. “Why the hell I thought you people were all  _ just  _ crazy last year is a mystery.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tony agreed confidently. “Every normal person on campus thinks we’re insane and they hate us.”

“To be fair, we take over campus for a week, running and screaming and wielding foam weaponry,” Natasha reasoned, eyes on Clint. “It’s not that weird to think we’re crazy.”

“Fair,” Bucky agreed. “And I threw him off the second floor into a  _ tree _ , just for the record,” he added to Steve. “It wasn’t just onto the ground.”

Steve laughed. “Like I said, I thought you were  _ just  _ crazy. You guys are still crazy, but awesome.” He grinned up at Bucky and Clint rappelled back down.

“Just the Defenders,” he confirmed, fingers brushing Nat’s wrist as he folded the rope back up. “And they’re  _ real  _ twitchy, so I’m guessing human.”

“Cool.” Bucky shouldered his rifle and led the way forward, turning the side of the building. He laughed when a single dart hit him in the chest.

“Do you know that all of you are melee except for poor Foggy? That’s not a very well-balanced dynamic, you know.”

“Well, if Steve would jump ship, then we’d have another,” Foggy volunteered, ducking to avoid Matt’s swing of his cane. It connected with Bucky’s forearm and Bucky snorted.

“You can’t have him, he’s ours. Jess, Luke, looking good. Everyone made it the night?”

“Of course we made it the night.” Jessica rolled her eyes. “See, we use melee because that allows our enemies to get close enough that we can hit them a little harder than strictly necessary. Remind them who they’re fucking with.”

Luke shook his head, smiling. “You have anger issues,” he told her, and they started walking toward the Student Center as she snorted. “Does anyone know who the captives are?”

“Nah, haven’t heard.” Tony shook his head.

“Anyone know if Frank’s around this year?” Danny glanced back at them, smacking Clint with his foam finger. “For zombies  _ or  _ humans?”

“No.” Bucky felt himself smile fondly. 

“Yeah,  _ you _ can look happy,” Foggy muttered. “He likes  _ you _ .”

“You’ll know him when you see him,” Bucky assured Steve, who eyed him warily.

They got to the Student Center without issue, stunning a couple random zombies who tried to rush them. Danny karate-chopped one in the shoulder with his foam finger and looked extremely pleased with himself, while Natasha shot one in the shoulder. They split off good-naturedly, running off to find someone else to try to ambush. 

The captives turned out to be a stranger and Trish Walker. 

“Trish?” Jessica stared at her. “You don’t even  _ play,  _ why are you here as a captive?”

“Hey.” She waved cheerfully, hopping down off the chair. “I know. But they said they needed non-playable characters, so I took the night off.”

“Oh my god.” Jessica snorted, but looked pleased to have her best friend back, and handed her a gun anyway. “Don’t let a zombie eat you.”

“The other guy already got taken by Chitauri and Kree. Is that right?” She turned to frown at the final captive, a brunette girl sitting on the steps beside her. The girl nodded, blowing a bubble and popping it.

“So we just leave you here?” Bucky eyed the other stranger, who gave them a thumbs up.

“Sure do! X-Men or Hydra will be around for me eventually.”

“Here’s to hoping it’s the X-Men,” Bucky muttered. 

“Bye, Kitty. Good luck.” Trish waved at her and examined the Nerf gun with a frown. “This looks… weird,” she announced.

“That’s because I modified it to hit harder,” Jess informed her.

“Hi,” Matt said with a smile to her. “I don’t think we’ve met. My name’s Matt Murdock.”

“ _ How _ does he know?” Foggy asked under his breath, and Clint grinned.

“He says he can sense it. It’s practically magic in my opinion.” He nudged Foggy with an elbow as they started moving and Matt and Trish struck up a conversation, Jess watching carefully. “Strike  _ first,  _ Fogs. I scooped before he could. He tried. I won.”

“Won?” Natasha arched her eyebrows at him and Bucky muffled his laugh in a cough. Clint forged forward breezily.

“Well you’re  _ my _ best friend. Matt got Foggy though.” He patted Foggy's shoulder. “Which is of course very nice.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Foggy grumbled.

Clint grinned at him and shot someone running at them to the side. “Eyes up, Franklin. I don’t want to die tonight.”

“I could have been a butcher,” he reflected sufferingly, then raised his gun. Bucky turned to ask Steve a question, but was distracted immediately by the group of people running toward them. It looked like maybe those of Hydra and the Sinister Six who’d already been turned. Including Brock Rumlow. He felt his mood sour as he raised his gun, and he started firing.

They were pinned down. They had to keep Trish safe at all costs, which led to their formation being less secure than Bucky would have liked. Their numbers were somehow  _ already _ high, and before they knew it, Tony had been separated from the group, his sock leaving his hand a moment after Rumlow clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Feed code,” Brock said in vicious triumph, and Tony looked like he’d rather  _ eat _ the sock. “One Avenger down, five to go.”

“God, you’re such a diva,” Tony muttered, searching in his pockets for the slip of paper that had his game identification number on it. He held it out and Brock snatched it up, smiling widely. 

“Thank you for your donation to the horde.”

“Did we lose anyone else?” Bucky looked around the group.

“Jess,” Danny confirmed, and Bucky looked around to watch her stuff her feed code into the barrel of her gun and throw the whole thing at one of the Hydra members, irritated.

“Just so you know, your asses are all mine,” she informed the Avengers and Defenders as the zombies headed off. “Take care of Trish.”

Clint knuckle-bumped Tony. “We will avenge your death,” he said solemnly. “I’ll make Rumlow eat that stupid jacket he’s wearing.”

“Do,” Tony agreed, taking his bandana off his arm and tying it around his head instead. 

“You could just give me your code now,” a voice suggested against Bucky’s ear, and he turned sharply, shoving Brock back a step. 

“Stay away from me. I mean it.”

“Sure you do, princess.” He patted Bucky’s cheek, fingers lingering against his jaw, and then he turned to catch up with his friends in a half-jog.

Steve took a few steps forward, fists clenched and expression dark as he opened his mouth. Thor yanked him back into place. “No,” he said firmly, resting a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m going to hit him.” Steve gritted his teeth.

“No, you’re not,” Natasha disagreed. “He’s just trying to rile us up, that’s what he does.”

Clint turned Bucky and pushed him. “Let’s get going,” he said as Thor made Steve walk alongside Bucky. “We’ve got most of the Avengers and the Defenders still, we can win. We’ve still got Trish?”

“Hi,” she volunteered, still caught in the middle of their cluster. Luke and Foggy were saying things then, but Bucky moved forward mechanically, not fully listening to them. His brain was caught, a broken record, playing over and over again the way Brock’s mouth had felt on his ear. The way it would feel if Brock bit down, if he grabbed, if he murmured words that confirmed that Bucky was less than human.

No. No, it had been a fucked-up relationship that Bucky had fallen into because he had been fresh away from his father and had thought that that kind of relationship was what he deserved if he was gay. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t real, and he was out of it. He was fine.

Fingers twined through his and he blinked, realizing that he and Steve were standing behind the Communication building, alone. Steve’s fingers were in his and he was looking up at him. “Hey,” he said quietly. “You okay?”

Bucky blinked down at him, taking in a slow breath. He hadn’t even noticed splitting away from the group. “I’m- yeah, of course. I’m okay.” He focused down on Steve’s fingers, so slender and beautiful, calloused in odd ways from holding pencils and paintbrushes. His thumb traveled over one of the callouses slowly. “I’m okay,” he repeated. “He just- he got in my head, and I never really figured out how to get him back out.”

Anger flashed through Steve’s pretty blue eyes. “I can arrange to hit him with a car,” he said, trying for a light tone. “He has no right to touch you. No right to talk to you like that. I’m sorry. People like that, though, you have to get out by telling yourself that they’re not worth it. That you’re more important, and the things they say are wrong. That the way they make you feel is wrong.” He watched the taller boy. “I think it starts with realizing they’ve never been right and you’re worth more than what they said.”

“How would you know if he’s right?” Bucky offered a small smile, leaning against the wall.

“Because,” Steve continued calmly, “You are the best person. And anything and anyone who makes you feel less than that is wrong.”

Bucky let out a laugh, pulling his hair from its bun and dragging a hand through it. “So says Captain America,” he observed, feeling a tired sort of fondness in his chest. “Steve, you only see people as good or bad.”

There was that anger again, making the blue color of Steve’s eyes flash and darken sharply. He really was beautiful when he was that angry. “And you think you’re bad why? Because some piece of trash said so? Because someone else did? Your friends love you. You’ve got like ten people just that  _ I’ve  _ met that love you, and you’ve got more friends and people in your life than that. Nat loves you. That right there should be enough to prove you’re not bad. Me thinking you’re the best might not have weight but hers does.”

“You have wei- wait, why Nat?” Bucky felt himself start to laugh, focusing back down on Steve with a grin. “Why does she matter the most?”

Steve gave a small smile, clearly still annoyed. “Because she’s not like me and Clint. She doesn’t like just anyone who isn’t actively a problem to the people we care about. She’s more choosy. So is Jessica, I think.” He took a step forward. “You’re worth a lot, Buck. Don’t let someone like him make you think otherwise. You’re the best person I know.”

Bucky looked down at him, at the blue-green eyes so serious in the dim light, the set of his delicate jaw, and felt a smile cross his face. He reached out, tracing his thumb along Steve’s jawline slowly.  _ How did I get so lucky to just be randomly assigned to you? What did I do to earn the universe’s favor like that? _

Steve looked up at him, eyes dark, and rested a hand on Bucky’s arm. “If you’re mean to my best friend again, I’ll have to kick your ass,” he said after a moment. “Got that? And that includes being rude in your head.”

Bucky laughed, dropping his hand to Steve’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume  _ I’m _ your best friend, doll?”

Steve grinned, eyes flicking to Bucky’s laughing mouth. He flushed very slightly and met his eyes again. “You would be guessing correctly. Be nice to you. No one gets to talk about you like that, including you.”

“All right.” Bucky smiled down at him. “I’ll do my best not to be too rude. C’mon, we need to catch up with the others before someone finds us out here.” He braced a hand on Steve’s back, directing him forward, and they continued on with the mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this little story is shaping up! We're almost done with it in rough, which is very exciting.   
> We love the Avengers so much, and there's so many places to take these characters. We fully plan on continuing to write them in other universes where they're a little more... well, you know. Superhero-y, so if you're enjoying this so far, keep an eye out for others like it!
> 
> Comments and kudos mean the world to us! This story has been a slow-catch and we're enjoying seeing the stats go up week by week. We love to talk to you guys in the comments section! If you ever want to know more or want to see something, let us know! There have been many times where fans have actually influenced and changed the direction of something by their suggestions and we love that.


	7. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's gallery opening arrives.

“So. Your thing starts at six for the public,” Bucky began, throwing a baseball up into the air and catching it, reclining at a precarious angle in his chair. “And you’re going to be there at like five to go admire everyone else’s stuff. Your mom’s going to be there, so that’ll be cool. Anything else I need to know?” He glanced back at Steve, who drummed his pencil on his desk, having stopped for a moment of pacing.

He was doing his best not to panic. He’d been in galleries before, various art shows that his teachers had helped him enter in high school or during freshman year of college. He’d never had _non-art_ friends come to see those shows. Would they be bored? Would they like his work? What would Bucky think of the portrait? When they saw everyone else’s stuff, would they think Steve’s was substandard?

What would his mom think of his friends? What would his friends think of his mom?

“Whoa. Hey, Steve.” Bucky got up, catching his arms and maneuvering Steve to sit in the chair he’d just vacated. “Hey, it’s gonna be fine, punk. You’re going to do great.”

“It’s fine, I’m not freaking out,” Steve protested. “I’m fine, I’m just… nervous. You know, a gallery and everything, it’s weird. And it’s in college, so it’s a big deal. My mom always came, but-” Nope, nope, he wasn’t going to say anything about that he was nervous for his friends to be there, that he was nervous if they didn’t like it. That would make him feel guilty. “I’m just nervous. It’s bigger than what I’ve done before.”

“How hard did you work on your pieces?” Bucky dipped his chin, locking gazes with Steve.

Steve frowned at him, confused. “I… I mean, I’ve spent since May working on them, they gave us break to work.”

“Yeah.” Bucky squeezed his shoulders. “And just your sketches are amazing, much less something you’ve worked on for six months. It’s going to be great, Steve. I can’t wait to see it. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Steve chewed his lower lip. Was he going to react well to the portrait? Would he think it was weird? Most people thought it was flattering, more or less, but what if Bucky didn’t think so? He took a deep breath and gave a smile, shaking it off. “Okay,” he said. “But if you hate it, you can tell me. I want brutal honesty.”

“You got it.” He gave a mock salute and crossed to Steve’s desk, picking up the flyer for the gallery flyer and studying it. “It’s gonna be good,” he confirmed to himself. He looked back at Steve, searching his face. “Did your dad get to see any of your art?”

“Nah.” Steve pulled on the sweater of Bucky’s that had vaguely become Steve’s. “I was eight when he died. So he saw some of my stuff, little-kid pictures, that’s pretty much it. Nothing actually interesting.” He smiled a little. “Apparently I drew a really bad army man and he kept it in his wallet, though.”

He could see the edge of Bucky’s smile, though he didn’t turn toward him, looking back at the flyer. “That’s pretty cool,” he reflected. “I’m sorry he couldn’t see what you can do now, but at least he appreciated it then.”

Steve smiled back at him, shrugging. “Yeah. I’d like it if he would have been able to see it, but it’s okay. I’ve got my mom. And you guys, which is cool. I haven’t ever really had non-art friends.”

“Yeah?” Bucky turned to lean back against Steve’s desk, and Steve was momentarily amused as he settled on Bucky’s bed that they had completely swapped places and halves of the room. “That makes sense. High school, it’s pretty easy to stick to your own cliques.”

“What kind of clique were you in?” Steve smiled at him. “I can see a lot of different things, I’m so curious. Did you have tattoos? Did you have piercings?”

“Hm.” Bucky tilted his head, considering this. “My best friend back in high school, her dad worked at a tattoo parlor, so she learned a lot. We did my gauges when I was about sixteen?” He tugged one of them. “First tattoo, I was eighteen. Ear piercings were scattered through then, eyebrow was when I got accepted to college.” He winked at Steve. “My sleeve was tattooed the day I moved into the dorm, because I wanted a professional to do that one.”

Steve grinned, then leaned forward. “Your best friend in high school? Who was that? Is she still around? Did you guys just go to different schools?” He gave a smile, searching Bucky’s face and trying to imagine what he’d look like without tattoos and piercings and gauges. It was weird to think of.

“Anna Marie’s not really the school type.” He smiled, eyes crinkling up at the corners. “I think she’s going to do tattooing when she gets back, but she took her dad’s motorcycle on a road trip. I haven’t talked to her for a year or so while she’s been traveling around, but she sends me post cards sometimes.” He pulled out his phone, flicking through pictures. “Hang on, I’ve got one of her… Yeah. Ugh, I looked like such a baby.” He grimaced down at his phone. “Nevermind, I’m not showing you this.”

“Oh my god, no, you _have_ to show me.” Steve leapt down from the lofted bed with a wide grin. “You have to.”

“I look like a _toddler,”_ Bucky groaned, but he held out the phone.

He definitely didn’t.

He did look different, though. His hair was short, tumbling across his forehead. His arms were bare and _clean,_ his left one almost shockingly pale now that Steve was so used to the lines of his tattoo. There were only three piercings in one ear and two in the other, and he looked just… younger, though it couldn’t possibly be more than two years beforehand. He was grinning nervously at the camera, one hand held up to shield his gaze from the girl sitting slightly beside him. She had dark hair that was caught up in a messy bun, several locks falling into her face. One of those locks was white, crisp and distinct against the rest of her hair. A little gemstone winked at the camera from atop her cheekbone and she was grinning while biting down on her lower lip. It looked like she was holding a tattoo gun, the waistband of Bucky’s pants pulled down to bare his hipbone.

 _Oh my god does he have a tattoo on his hip?_ Steve’s thoughts blanked out for a moment and he shook himself. “You don’t look like a toddler,” he protested. “You look fine, just different. Anna Marie’s pretty. How many… tattoos do you have?”

Bucky frowned, tilting his head back toward the ceiling as his fingers twitched as if counting. “Six,” he said finally. “I have five. My sleeve, the two on my hips, one on my upper thigh, the one on my neck, and then there’s one right here.” He tapped the spot right behind his right ear.

Steve fought the thoughts that immediately rose about his hips and frowned a little. “I didn’t know you had one behind your ear.” Or his thigh. Jesus. “What is it?”

“My hair hides it sometimes, and with the piercings, everyone looks at that.” He turned, pulling his hair back with one hand and his ear down with the other. There was a Jewish star there, small and delicate in its linework.

Steve reached up, tracing it. “I didn’t know that you were Jewish,” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to buy you Hanukkah presents and buy you… dredels.” He winced. He knew almost nothing about Judaism, but he would learn. “It’s beautiful.”

Bucky chuckled. “I’m only ethnically,” he assured him. “It’s for my mom, she’s Jewish. We didn’t celebrate most of the holidays when I was a kid, but sometimes she’d have a really good day and she’d tell us stories.”

Steve gave him a smile. “Would you _like_ to celebrate the holidays?” He had said _she’s_ Jewish. As in, she _is._ “You never spoke about your mother. You don’t have to talk to me about it, but if you want to, I’d listen.”

“My ma’s…” Bucky hesitated, then shrugged a little. “My ma’s schizophrenic. She’s in and out of different facilities a lot.”

“Oh.” Steve looked up at him. He could imagine that this would make him uncomfortable to talk about. Steve didn’t know much about schizophrenia, honestly, and he scanned his brain for whatever information he had. “I’m sorry. That would be very hard. Do you visit her often, or is it too difficult?”

“No, I visit,” Bucky disagreed immediately, focusing back on him “It’s not her fault she’s like that, and when she’s doing inpatient and taking her meds, things are pretty solid. It’s only when she goes home and stops taking them that things get messier for her.” He offered Steve a smile. “She’s a good woman and she works really hard to try to be a good mom. Her condition doesn’t change that.”

Steve looked up at him, feeling his heart squeeze. He was such a good man, a good son. How he could have such a low self-esteem about certain things made no sense when he was such an incredible person.

“I’m glad you visit, then. I’m sure she really appreciates having someone so solidly supportive and invested in her, even when she has problems. What is she like?” He started getting his things together. “When she’s stable and happy, what is she actually like? Is she like you?” He grinned back at Bucky. “Warm and funny and reckless?”

“Reckless?” Bucky braced a hand on his chest, mock-offended. “When am I reckless?”

Steve laughed, shaking his head. “You’re crazy,” he said affectionately. “But that’s one of the reasons we like you. I do need to go, I promised Wanda I’d help her hang her things before her dads get there.”

“Okay.” Bucky smiled at him, settling back on his desk. “To answer your question, my ma’s great. She bakes a lot, she hums while she cleans, and she makes a lot of jokes. You’d like her.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll see you at six, Stevie.”

“I’m sure I would like her,” Steve agreed. “I’ll see you at six. Don’t get yourself bit by a zombie.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself, then headed out, thinking about all the things he now knew about Bucky.

* * *

“I’m shocked you haven’t died yet,” Wanda remarked, tying her hair back in an intricate sort of braid. “You have the muscle mass of a hamster.” She laughed. “More power to you, though. Watch everyone else die and you actually make it to the end.”

They were wandering through the gallery, which hadn’t yet opened its doors to everyone else. It was kind of nice, because it gave all the artists a chance to look at each other’s projects and pieces without any crowds in the way, but Steve’s mind was continuously returning to the idea of the group showing up and looking at his work.

“I think it’s just luck. We’ve worked out a system and we travel as a group, mostly, so people have to go through all of us to get any of us.” Natasha was _somehow_ still human despite living with Tony. She credited this both to the fact that she traveled with their group and the fact that she had a foam knife that she stabbed Tony with every ten minutes while they were on campus. Steve was, quite frankly, in awe of her ability and glad that she was on _their_ side. “I’m getting a lot better with my gun, too. I’ve actually saved a few of them a few times.”

“I’m proud of you.” Her eyes crinkled up at him and she glanced out the windows, to where the crowds were beginning to mingle. Her cheeks flared with color suddenly, although Steve couldn’t actually see the pink. She diverted their path abruptly, guiding Steve to look at the photography area of the gallery. She paused to examine one photo set of body parts-- the curve of a wrist, the swell of an ankle, teeth brushing a lower lip, all in macro. “I actually like that,” she noted, clearing her throat.

Steve grinned up at her. “It is very nice. Why are you embarrassed now? Who’d you see?” He glanced back, not seeing anyone for him yet. They probably were in the back, watching to make sure none of the people gathered were zombies.

“I’m not _embarrassed._ I just… I didn’t think he’d actually come.” Her lips curved up into a smile.

Steve nudged her with a grin. “Oh yeah? Who is it? The dude you’re always drawing?” She wouldn’t tell him the guy’s name, but she’s drawn him a few times, along with a lot of others. Wanda’s specialty was people.

“Yeah.” Her color deepened slightly, her expression contented. “He doesn’t see me like that, but still, it’s cool he came.”

Steve snorted. “I guess it depends on what kind of person he is. He may have just never said anything about it. But I’m glad he came. Are your parents coming?” Steve’s mom was. She had taken the night off for him, and it was going to be his first time seeing her in a month.

“Yeah, of course. Pietro’s going to be with them, too.” She was chipper and cheerful. A bell rang as the front door opened and she caught Steve’s arm. “Oh, it’s time. I’ll catch up with you later?”

“Okay.” He grinned a little and took his place, feeling a weird thrill of anxious energy.

People began flooding inside, chattering and filling the gallery with activity. Wanda was soon met by her fathers, the smaller of whom hugged her enthusiastically. A boy about their age ran forward, hugging her tightly and chattering, his light hair looking almost white in the lights shining on the work behind them. Her twin? Pietro, Wanda drew him all the time. Then Steve’s attention was redirected as he was hugged himself. His mother pulled back, beaming at him.

“Hey, baby. How’ve you been?” She reached out, smoothing his hair back with a brilliant smile. “Look at you, in a _gallery.”_

“Hi.” He smiled at her, hugging her back. “It’s good to see you too. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.” He looked around, a little embarrassed. “It’s weird. How have you been?” He searched her face. “They’re working you all the time.”

“Course they are.” Her eyes crinkled. “We’re short-staffed, baby. It is what it is. I’m glad I could get off tonight, though.” She rested her hands on her hips, turning to focus on his pieces across the wall. “Oh, honey, these are absolutely wonderful.”

“Yeah?” He looked over, feeling a smile cross his face. He’d worked for months on them, perfecting every line and every tiny piece and aspect. They were all black and grey, and were a variety of subjects. There were a few collages of birds, books, and plants from the campus greenhouse. Below them was a piece that had been particularly fun to draw-- a line of owners and their different dogs. Each of the dogs was unique and he had met them on campus, and it had been so much fun to compile all the different photos together into a team of dog walkers.

The last was a detailed rendering of Bucky, his hair up in its usual bun. He was laughing and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, his other braced across his face to partly hide his laugh. The metal tattoo sleeve was the biggest change-- instead of a tattoo, he had created an actual arm made of metal, a sleek-looking prosthetic that used the lines of the actual tattoo. Steve even now wasn’t sure that it was the best choice of piece to have put up-- could everyone see the attention to detail in the drawing? Could they see how much love and care had been put into the lines? Was it obvious what the artist felt for the subject? Steve felt a little nervous, still, looking at it. But at the same time, it was one of his best works. His teacher had all but forced him to enter it for consideration in place of the portrait that had originally been up for the exhibit.

“They’re lovely,” Steve’s mother agreed warmly. “I like the dogs especially. Who’s the man?” She tilted her head, studying Bucky’s laughing pose. He was in a tanktop and sweatpants, the informal presentation eliminating any chance that it was a stranger. Not that he necessarily _wanted_ her to think it was a stranger, he wanted them to meet and be friendly, but still.

“That’s Bucky.” He glanced at her, heart pounding. He wasn’t sure how she felt about homosexuality, but that question, at least, was easy to answer. “You know Bucky, my roommate. We’ve talked about him, he’s the one I’m doing the zombies game with. The one who had the inhaler.”

“Right!” She glanced down at him in surprise, then looked back at the drawing. “Does he actually have a prosthetic arm? You didn’t mention that.”

“No.” He grinned. “He’s got a tattoo like that, so I just made it a prosthetic. You’ll probably see the real thing, he said he’d drop by at some point.” He had never once wavered from his promise to come, and Steve had faith in that. He really wanted them to meet. “You’re going to like him. He’s been amazing.”

“I’m glad.” She pulled him close for another hug, squeezing him. “Your father would be so proud of you, Steven. You have no idea.”

He laughed a little, hugging her back. “I’d like to think so,” he agreed. “I guess I don’t know. He liked my drawings. I hope he’d be proud that this is what I decided to do with my life.” _Would he be proud if he knew I liked Bucky like that? Would you be if you knew?_

“He would be,” she assured him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. She paused, then laughed. “I’m going to assume those are your zombie friends?”

“Oh god.” He looked at the ceiling, imagining what they may have decided to troll him with, and turned to look.

They were actually dressed very nicely. Natasha was in a stunning black dress and was laughing with Clint as they looked around. Clint was just in black pants and a white t-shirt with a tie that was pulled loose around his neck, but he was without his usual bleach-stained hoodie, so it was actually very cleaned up for his standards. Thor was in jeans and a button-up and had somehow already attracted a small cloud of girls. Tony and Bucky were both dressed similarly to Thor, Bucky’s tattoo for once hidden by long sleeves that Steve almost never saw him wear. Steve internally sighed; his tattoo was _so_ attractive.

That said, they all _were_ wearing their bandanas, Tony’s wrapped around his head as the rules dictated to show his zombie status, and the rest of them _did_ in fact have various Nerf weaponry attached to them. They weren’t in their usual full gear though, and clearly had made an attempt to draw less attention to themselves. Bucky turned his head, catching Steve’s gaze, and offered a brilliant smile as he waved.

Steve’s grin was too wide, he knew, too bright, but he couldn’t help it. “Those would be my zombie friends,” he agreed cheerfully. “Though to be fair, only the one with the headband around his head is actually a zombie. The rest are still humans.”

“I see,” his mother mused, and it felt suddenly and distinctly like she _did_ see. He didn’t have time to look at her though, as Bucky was leading the group through the crowd.

“Hey,” he greeted him warmly, reaching out and offering a hug. “It’s a good turn-out for an art gallery, are they always this busy?”

“Yes, you pleb,” Tony said dryly. “Good job getting in, Steve.”

“Thanks.” Steve hugged Bucky quickly, unable to _not,_ and gestured. “This is my mom, Sarah Rogers. Mom, this is Bucky, Tony the zombie, Clint, Nat, and the one being mobbed by girls is Thor.” He almost felt sorry for the Aussie- he literally couldn’t go _anywhere_ without being clustered by girls- but he knew Thor practically fed off it. “They’ve promised not to shoot in here.” He grinned at his mother. “They’re safe.”

“Thor?” Her eyebrows raised.

“Oh, we’ve checked extensively. It is legitimately the name on his birth certificate.” Natasha’s smile was warm as she shook Steve’s mother’s hand. “His brother is named Loki. They had weird parents, it happens.”

“I suppose it does.” Sarah Rogers laughed, bemused. She glanced at Tony and frowned slightly. “Actually, you look kind of familiar. Have we met before?”

Tony’s smile was slightly bland. “I look like my dad, you’ve probably seen him around. I’ve actually been meaning to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Rogers.” He gestured for her to walk away with him a little and Natasha and Bucky frowned after him as Steve’s protests were roundly ignored.

“Did he just kidnap your mom?” Bucky inquired.

“Oh my god, if Tony married your mother, he’d be your dad,” Clint said in absolute glee and Natasha coughed, pressing a hand over her mouth.

Steve stared at him. “If I become a zombie I’m coming _straight_ for you,” he informed him, and Clint laughed and turned to examine the pictures. Steve’s heartrate raised quickly. Would Tony mention that they’d kissed? Would he accidentally out Steve because he’d forgotten that Steve’s mother didn’t know? Clint’s voice pulled him back out of his fears and he refocused.

“Bucky, this one of you is great. I think only one arm is an improvement.”

“Hm?” Bucky turned to look. “Me- oh hey, it is me.” He studied it in fascination, moving closer. “Wow, Steve. You made me way hotter than I am, though. Maybe it’s the arm.”

Steve wondered vaguely if the actual air around him heated with how much his face heated. “No, that’s … more or less what you look like. I’m not always the best at photorealism but… yeah.” He didn’t think it was weird. Bucky didn’t think that it was weird, he didn’t think that Steve was a creepy person. “I was going to draw the tattoo but I thought since it’s art, I could…” he gestured.

“It’s a good backup plan,” Clint agreed easily, examining the dogs. “Nat, look at how cute this little shit is. You and Tony should get a dog. You could train it in Russian.”

“I _could_ train it in Russian,” she marvelled absently, leaning forward to examine one of the cocker spaniels in the drawing.

“It’s so good,” Bucky told Steve warmly, eyes crinkling. “I love it. I wish I was half this good at anything. You really could just make a living with your art, you know. You don’t have to teach, you’re good enough that you could just do this.” He gestured to the room.

“No one pays for just line art.” Steve played with his fingers, pleased. “I’ve thought about doing medical illustrations and stuff. There’s a little money in that. But thank you.”

“You could do stuff like this. What about that Ed-”

“Bucky!” A girl’s voice cut through his and, if Steve hadn’t spent the last month staring obsessively at his roommate and studying his features to draw, Steve might have missed the tiny flicker of tension across his face and shoulders. But then he was beaming, turning and catching a pretty African American girl around her waist as she broke through the crowd to him. She leaned up, pressing her lips to his cheek, and he smiled down at her.

“There’s my girl. You didn’t tell me you were going to be here.”

“They took one of my sculpture pieces.” She grinned up at him, crinkling her nose. He kissed the tip of it, raising his chin, and Steve looked at them, feeling almost physically cold and shocked, but there was no way he could look away for a few long moments. He numbly followed Bucky’s gaze and found an older African American couple wandering toward them, both watching Bucky carefully. He offered a bright and charming smile, leaving his arm around the girl.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rambeau, it’s so good to see you again.” He held out a hand and shook the man’s. 

“It’s good to see you in proper clothes,” the man agreed with a smile. “You came to see Maria’s art show? She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” He looked at her proudly and Steve felt a lurch in his stomach and looked away quickly, focusing on Wanda as the two men and boy standing with her made her laugh.

He hadn’t known that Bucky was dating anyone. He had thought about it the first day, he’d wondered here and there when he left randomly, he had wondered about Jessica, but to see it was a very different thing.

Steve hadn’t realized just how much it would hurt to have evidence of this, though. Hadn’t realized how it would feel like a hole had been punched through his chest.

Wanda’s taller dad was looking at a new boy who had approached them with an incredibly unfriendly look, he noted absently as Bucky assured the father of ‘Maria’ that he wouldn’t have missed her show for the world. The boy who was now greeting Wanda looked like the one she often drew.

“Mrs. Rambeau,” Natasha was greeting Maria’s mother warmly. “I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Natasha. One of Bucky’s old friends. Your daughter was telling the gang the _funniest_ story about her little brother the other day and I thought about it and you for just days afterwards.” She led the woman away slightly, chattering animatedly to her, and Maria took a deep breath with a warm smile of her own.

“Daddy, will you meet me back over by my piece? I want to show you the inspiration and I want to thank Bucky for coming.”

The father nodded, looking between them, but eventually wandered back the way they had come. Maria looked back at Bucky as Steve forced himself to look back at his own works, at his ridiculously obviously devoted portrait of his roommate, who was just as ridiculously and obviously devoted to his apparently-long-term girlfriend who apparently hung out with everyone without him there. That part hurt too; that everyone had known and they hadn’t said anything.

He tried to distract himself and saw a flash of blonde hair leaving out of the gallery. He frowned as he tried to place the familiar shape, then realized- Carol. He wondered vaguely why she hadn’t come over and said hello- the game was stopped here, indoors.

The tone of Maria’s voice when she spoke next, however, caught his attention and had him looking back at them. “Bucky, I’m so sorry,” she whispered quickly. “They surprised me, I didn’t know they were coming in for this. I would have lied and said you were off somewhere, but then you were _here_ and they saw you. I’m so sorry.”

“Ria, it’s fine.” He shook his head, settling his hands on her cheeks, almost as if to block anyone else’s view of her. He was smiling, but his voice had the same low, soothing tone that he got when he was walking Steve through an attack. Steve frowned a little, confused at this. “I’ve got you. How long are they staying?”

“An hour, and then they want to meet me after for dinner. I can tell them you’re busy, I know you have your game tonight.”

Bucky hesitated, looking torn, then shook his head. “No, I can be there. Just text me when it’s time and let me know where to go, okay?”

He was going to dinner with her and her family? Steve looked around for his mother briefly and couldn’t find her, but found Clint talking animatedly to a girl about a piece of wire art and Nat still talking to Maria’s mother. Thor was still talking to girls, but Tony and Steve’s mother were nowhere to be seen. Steve unwillingly glanced back at Bucky and his girl.

“Jesus, you’re my hero.” She leaned up, pressing her lips extremely briefly against his, and then she was heading back to her parents and Natasha. Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, turning his back to them, and glanced down at Steve.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “Thanks for not blowing it.”

He shrugged a little, unsure what exactly was happening. “Your girlfriend seems nice,” he said after a moment, trying for a nonchalant tone.

“Maria is extremely nice,” he agreed, eyes tracking her through the crowd and voice dropping to a lower murmur. “And not my girlfriend.”

Steve looked up at him. “Then what?” Was Bucky one of those people who didn’t like labels, never defined relationships? He couldn’t match up their tones and the words. Nothing they’d said made sense.

Bucky faltered as Maria looked back at him and he let out a sharp breath of frustration. “This is not how I wanted tonight to go. Look, can you ask Nat about it? I’m so sorry.” His fingers curled loosely, briefly, at Steve’s wrist. “Your stuff really is amazing, Steve. I’m really proud, I just have to go.”

“It’s fine, Buck.” Steve nodded a little, giving him a small smile. “I’ll talk to her. Go see Maria.” The name hurt. “I’ve got to go find Tony anyway and make sure he’s not saying something bad to my mom.” He brushed his fingers against Bucky’s, then stepped back. “Thanks for coming. I’m glad you liked it.”

Bucky looked faintly miserable, but nodded. “I promise I’ll talk to you about it tonight,” he assured him, and then he was bringing up a smile on his face and turning, crossing to the little family on the other side of the gallery. He caught Nat’s shoulder and murmured something to her as she passed him. She gave a nod and returned to Steve’s side.

“Hey,” she greeted him. “I saw your mom and Tony, they’re talking outside.” She studied him. “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He watched the people moving around. He hurt. Nat had known and she hadn’t told him. “I’ve got my first gallery. That’s pretty cool.”

“Steve,” she said, almost gently which was entirely unusual for Natasha Romanov, “Steve, Bucky’s gay. You know that, right? I mean, you know that he dated Rumlow, don’t you?” 

Steve glanced back at Bucky, who had an arm around Maria again and was laughing. He frowned. He hadn’t known much about Bucky’s relationship with Rumlow. It was obvious that it hadn’t been _great,_ but he hadn’t known that it had been actually dating. “He doesn’t seem gay.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t seem pan, but I am.” She rolled her eyes. “Bucky’s a beard, Steve. For like _six_ girls. Well, Finn’s nonbinary, so for six people. He used to have more than that, he’s actually cut back a bit. People who can’t come out or who it would be dangerous, he hangs out with them and takes pictures or goes on family dinners. He’s Maria’s ‘boyfriend,’ but _Carol_ is Maria’s girlfriend.”

He blinked at her. “Carol Danvers? She was here, I saw her leave. She left because Maria’s family showed up?” He glanced back at Maria and Bucky. He couldn’t see any fake emotions, couldn’t tell that Bucky was pretending. “So he just… dates them when he has to, so their families don’t get upset?” His chest ached at the idea.

“Yeah. He fills in as long as they need, until they feel secure enough to come out.” She followed his gaze, watching them. “I asked him once what he’d do when _he_ started dating, and he said that his partner would just have to be okay with it, that the girls’ safety mattered more. The girls are all gay, they just need a way to have more time without their families getting suspicious. Two of them are actually dating each _other,_ and Bucky fills in for both of them.”

“That’s really…” Steve couldn’t honestly think of a word to finish that sentence. There were too many. He’d thought Bucky was a good person before. Jesus.

If he hadn’t been stupidly in love with him before, he was now, he thought as he watched Bucky hug Maria into his side as she looked away, hiding her small twist of expression as he pulled attention on himself with what looked like a joke.

She was gay and her family didn’t like it. Her girlfriend had had to leave. This was _her_ show, too, and she hadn’t been able to do what she wanted, she’d had to hide. Steve shook his head. “He’s a good guy,” he said after a long moment. He knew that was the understatement of the century, that it wasn’t even _close_ to expressing what he was feeling, but it would have to suffice.

“Yeah,” Nat agreed easily. “He’s fairly decent. Although we’re missing the mission, and if we all die on the way home without him to watch our backs, it’s Maria who owes us all dinner.” She shook her head darkly. “Carol’s going to have to run some serious interference for us tonight.”

He laughed. “What’s she like? I’ve never really talked to her, just during the game and then she was a zombie trying to kill us.”

“Oh, she’s flat and hilarious and a bit of a nightmare.” Natasha grinned at him. “It’s a rare girl that catches my attention, but she’s pretty damn cool. She’s dedicated to Maria. It’s pretty cute, they’ve been going out for like two years. I’ll invite her to dinner sometime.” She glanced at the drawings that Steve had worked so hard on. “These really are good, Steve. Proud of you.”

“Thank you.” He gave her a warm smile, relaxing slowly. She wouldn’t lie about Bucky, and someone like her being proud of you meant a lot. “When you saw Tony and my mom, what were they talking about?”

“You,” she said, chuckling. “You have fun with that, it sounded pretty in-depth.”

“Oh god.” He gave her a wave and strode quickly toward the doors, looking around for his mom and Tony. He needed to see Wanda later but right now he needed to supervise his mother and friend.

He found them just outside the doors, Steve’s mother looking mildly impressed as she listened to the young genius speak. Tony glanced around, catching sight of Steve, and grinned. “He tracked us down,” he noted to Sarah, who looked around with a smile.

“Hey, baby. Sorry I stepped out, is everything going okay in there?” She reached out, fixing his suspenders.

“I’m more concerned about what Tony’s doing,” he informed her with a smile. “Clint said you’re trying to date my mom,” he informed Tony. “I’ll have to bury you somewhere if you try.”

“Anytime.” Tony grinned, bright and flirtatious. He glanced back at Sarah and shook his head, touching her arm. “Thanks for the information, I’ll get in contact with my people and let you know what’s going on. Steve, I’ll return her to you. Thanks for the loan.”

Steve eyed him. “You’re welcome. She’s pretty cool.” He looked at her as Tony left. “What were you talking about? Please tell me he’s not trying to flirt with you. I can’t deal with that.”

“No, you fool.” She laughed. “That boy is twenty years younger than me, good _Lord._ He wanted to talk about your medical history.”

“My medical history?” Honestly, Steve would almost rather him have been flirting, but it was better than outing him, at least. “Why would he want that? It’s not of any use to anyone.”

“To a _billionaire,_ maybe it would be.” She stared at him. “How the hell did you meet Antony Stark? Do you know who that kid’s father is?”

“Yeah.” Steve waved a hand. At this point, that was just details. Tony’s money wasn’t what mattered to any of the Avengers, it was his brain. “He’s Bucky’s friend. He can’t buy me a new body, so why would he need to know?”

“He thinks that he can make some sort of drug cocktail that would correct some of your issues.” She frowned. “I told him that he wasn’t a doctor, and he ignored that. I told him that we don’t need charity, and he told me he’d spend the money on cocaine if he didn’t spend it on you.”

“Oh my god.” Steve ran a hand down his face. “Tony’s insane, Mom. That’s… I should have led off with that. He’s completely insane. I’m 60% sure that he doesn’t do illicit drugs but I could be wrong about that.”

“Yeah. You’re not taking whatever he thinks up until it’s actually tested by professional drug boards and certifications.” She laughed, then sobered a little. “But he was extremely competent. He knew what he was talking about, knew details about the drugs and conditions that it took me years of raising you to learn. It’s amazing, how smart he is. I can’t imagine how smart his father must be, then.”

Steve shook his head. “From what Bucky says, Tony’s smarter. He’s just younger. He graduated MIT when he was seventeen and now he’s just relaxing and taking a fun major because he wants to be a normal person.”

Her eyebrows raised in surprise and she considered this. “Huh. Crazy.” She looked down at him for a moment, then, “So… that boy. Bucky.” Her voice was quieter, gentle.

Panic gripped his chest and he nodded a little, shrugging. “Yeah. I’m glad you got to meet him. He’s just never in the room when we call or FaceTime.”

“Steven.” Gentle admonishment in her tone.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “I don’t… we never talked about stuff like that. I don’t know how you feel about it. Are you disappointed?” He couldn’t exactly meet her eyes. “How did you know?”

“You’ve never seen yourself smile at him,” she informed him, reaching out and smoothing a lock of his hair behind his ear. “I’ve never seen you light up like that. How do _you_ feel about it?” She moved a different lock, brushing it back as well, smoothing it into place.

“He’s the best person I’ve ever met.” He felt his face burn. “Things are easier when I’m with him. When I’m having an attack or something, he helps me through it. He doesn’t make me feel weak, or sick, or anything.” He shook his head and looked up at her. “I mean, he bullies me to take care of myself.” He gave a little grin. “But he does what he can to take care of things.”

“If he’s good, and he takes care of you, and you feel that strongly…” She smoothed her hand down his shoulder. “I have no issues with it, sweetheart.”

Relief. Relief strong enough that he felt almost dizzy. He moved forward and hugged her tightly. “You’re going to love him,” he promised. “I don’t know if it’s going to end up as anything, I don’t know what he thinks or feels-” he had an idea, maybe, but that wasn’t confirmation. “-but you’re going to love him no matter what. All he does is help me and make me laugh.”

“He better not break your heart,” she warned, squeezing him into her side. “You’re too good for that.”

“Just because I like him doesn’t mean he has to like me, Mom.” Steve gave a laugh, but squeezed her anyway. “Do you want to meet some of my friends? I’d like you to meet Wanda, and Nat again. Bucky’s helping a friend.”

“Of course. I’m all yours this evening. Whatever you want to do, I’m here.” She nodded, smiling, and accompanied him back inside. He tried to focus on her and the others, but his mind couldn’t stay off of Bucky for more than a handful of minutes at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, gonna be honest- we have no idea how this didn't get updated. Your guess is as good as ours! Here it is.
> 
> Comments and feedback are adored.


End file.
